Controlling switch mechanism for detecting fibre channel over ethernet data forwarder failure

摘要

Techniques are provided for detecting failure of switching elements of a distributed switch configured to forward Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) frames. Periodic discovery advertisement messages, which include a fabric name fieldm, are transmitted between a controlling Fiber Channel Forwarder (cFCF) and a FCoE data forwarder (FDF). The cFCF determines a FDF has failed out of the switch fabric based on a reserved value in the fabric name field of a received discovery advertisement message, such as a zero or null value, and de-instantiates virtual links with that FDF.

主权项

1. A computer program product for managing a distributed Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) fabric configured to encapsulate Fibre Channel frames in Ethernet frames, the computer program product comprising:
a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer-readable program code embodied therewith, the computer-readable program code comprising: computer-readable program code, executable by a processor, configured to instantiate a first switch link between a controlling FCoE forwarder (cFCF) of the distributed FCoE fabric and a first FCoE data-plane forwarder (FDF), wherein the distributed FCoE fabric further comprises a set of FDFs; computer-readable program code configured to receive, from the first FDF, a first discovery advertisement message that contains a fabric name field for identifying the distributed FCoE fabric, wherein the fabric name field comprises a first value; computer-readable program code configured to, responsive to determining the first FDF is no longer part of the distributed FCoE fabric based on the first value of the fabric name field, de-instantiate the first switch link between the cFCF and the first FDF; and computer-readable program code configured to instantiate a second switch link between the cFCF and the first FDF.