Trunking for fabric ports in Fibre channel switches and attached devices

摘要

N_Ports and F_Ports are provided with logic allowing designation of multiple virtual interfaces on a single host bus adaptor or other Fiber Channel interface, one virtual interface for each VSAN operating on the node interface. Node ports with this additional functionality are referred to as trunking N_Ports or TN_Ports. These ports have a functional design allowing creation of the multiple virtual interfaces as appropriate for the application at hand. This port design also includes logic for communicating with a peer fabric port to initialize and modify the configuration of the virtual interfaces on the TN_Port. A corresponding functional design and communication logic is provided for fabric ports, referred to herein as trunking F_Ports or TF_Ports.

主权项

1. A trunking N_Port for a Fibre Channel node, the trunking N_Port comprising:
an N_Port interface designed or configured to support a communication protocol for configuring virtual Storage Area Network (VSAN) functionality; and a controller designed or configured to communicate with an F_Port on a Fibre Channel switch and determine whether VSAN functionality is available on the F_Port and, if so, define one or more VSAN interfaces for one or more VSANs on the trunking N_Port, each of the one or more VSANs on the trunking N_Port having a corresponding VSAN on the F_Port, each of the one or more VSAN interfaces designed or configured to provide functionality of an N_Port for a corresponding VSAN on the trunking N_Port; wherein each of the one or more VSAN interfaces is designed or configured to provide frames containing information identifying the particular VSAN to which it belongs.