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 Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) frames. Periodic discovery advertisement messages, which include a fabric name fieldm, are transmitted between a controlling Fibre 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 method for managing a distributed Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) fabric configured to encapsulate Fibre Channel frames in Ethernet frames, the method comprising:
instantiating 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; receiving, 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; 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-instantiating the first switch link between the cFCF and the first FDF; and instantiating a second switch link between the cFCF and the first FDF.