C H A P T E R
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Overview
This chapter contains the following sections:
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SAN Switching Overview, page 1
SAN Switching Overview
This chapter provides an overview of SAN switching for Cisco NX-OS devices. This chapter includes the
following sections:
Fibre Channel Interfaces
Fibre Channel ports are optional on the Cisco Nexus device.
Each Fibre Channel port can be used as a downlink (connected to a server) or as an uplink (to the data center
SAN fabric).
Domain Parameters
The Fibre Channel domain (fcdomain) feature performs principal switch selection, domain ID distribution,
FC ID allocation, and fabric reconfiguration functions as described in the FC-SW-2 standards. The domains
are configured per VSAN . If you do not configure a domain ID, the local switch uses a random ID.
N Port Virtualization
Cisco NX-OS software supports industry-standard N port identifier virtualization (NPIV), which allows
multiple N port fabric logins concurrently on a single physical Fibre Channel link. HBAs that support NPIV
can help improve SAN security by enabling zoning and port security to be configured independently for each
virtual machine (OS partition) on a host. In addition to being useful for server connections, NPIV is beneficial
for connectivity between core and edge SAN switches.
VSAN Trunking
Trunking, also known as VSAN trunking, enables interconnect ports to transmit and receive frames in more
than one VSAN over the same physical link. Trunking is supported on E ports and F ports.
SAN Port Channels
PortChannels aggregate multiple physical ISLs into one logical link with higher bandwidth and port resiliency
for Fibre Channel traffic. With this feature, up to 16 expansion ports (E-ports) or trunking E-ports (TE-ports)
can be bundled into a PortChannel. ISL ports can reside on any switching module, and they do not need a
Cisco Nexus 5500 Series NX-OS SAN Switching Configuration Guide, Release 7.x
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