Maintaining a fabric name across a distributed switch

摘要

Techniques are provided for distributing a fabric name to switching elements of a distributed switch configured to forward Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) frames. A distributed switch membership distributed (DMFD) message is transmitted that includes names of all switching elements in the distributed switch, and further includes a fabric descriptor that contains the fabric name.

主权项

1. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer-readable program code embodied therewith for managing a distributed Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) fabric in which Fibre Channel frames are encapsulated in Ethernet frames, the computer-readable program code comprising:
computer-readable program code configured to transmit from a first FCoE data-plane forwarder (FDF) to a controlling FCoE forwarder (cFCF) of the distributed Fibre Channel fabric a discovery advertisement message containing a fabric name field comprising a zero value; computer-readable program code configured to receive a unicast discovery solicitation message from the cFCF; computer-readable program code configured to instantiate a switch link between the cFCF of the distributed Fibre Channel fabric and the first FDF responsive to accepting a request to establish the switch link comprising a VA_port to VA_port link, wherein the distributed Fibre Channel fabric further comprises a set of FDFs, and wherein a VA_port is an instance of an FC-2V sublevel of the Fibre Channel; computer-readable program code configured to receive, from the cFCF, a distributed switch membership distribution (DFMD) message, wherein the DFMD message contains a fabric name identifying the distributed Fibre Channel fabric; and computer-readable program code configured to modify the first FDF to join the distributed Fibre Channel fabric based on the fabric name contained in the DFMD message.