Fibre Channel Over Ethernet: Broadcom NetXtreme II® Network Adapter User Guide
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Fibre Channel Over Ethernet: Broadcom NetXtreme II
®
Network Adapter User Guide
Overview
FCoE Boot from SAN
Configuring FCoE
Overview
In today's data center, multiple networks, including network attached storage (NAS), management, IPC, and storage, are used to achieve the desired performance and versatility. In
addition to iSCSI for storage solutions, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) can now be used with capable Broadcom C-NICs. FCoE is a standard that allows Fibre Channel protocol to be
transferred over Ethernet by preserving existing Fibre Channel infrastructures and capital investments by classifying received FCoE and FCoE Initialization Protocol (FIP) frames.
The following FCoE features are supported:
Receiver classification of FCoE and FIP frames. FIP is the FCoE Initialization Protocol used to establish and maintain connections.
Receiver CRC offload
Transmitter CRC offload
Dedicated queue set for Fibre Channel traffic
Data Center Bridging (DCB) provides lossless behavior with Priority Flow Control (PFC)
DCB allocates a share of link bandwidth to FCoE traffic with Enhanced Transmission Selection (ETS)
DCB supports storage, management, computing, and communications fabrics onto a single physical fabric that is simpler to deploy, upgrade, and maintain than in standard Ethernet
networks. DCB technology allows the capable Broadcom C-NICs to provide lossless data delivery, lower latency, and standards-based bandwidth sharing of data center physical links. The
DCB supports FCoE, iSCSI, Network-Attached Storage (NAS), Management, and IPC traffic flows. For more information on DCB, see
Using Data Center Bridging (DCB)
.
FCoE Boot from SAN
This section describes the install and boot procedures for the Windows, Linux, ESX, and Solaris operating systems.
NOTE: FCoE Boot from SAN is not supported on ESXi 5.0. ESX Boot from SAN is supported on ESXi 5.1 and above.
The following section details the BIOS setup and configuration of the boot environment prior to the OS install.
Preparing System BIOS for FCoE Build and Boot
Modify System Boot Order
The Broadcom initiator must be the first entry in the system boot order. The second entry must be the OS installation media. It is important that the boot order be set correctly or else the
installation will not proceed correctly. Either the desired boot LUN will not be discovered or it will be discovered but marked offline.
Specify BIOS Boot Protocol (if required)
On some platforms, the The boot protocol must be configured through system BIOS configuration. On all other systems the boot protocol is specified through the Broadcom
Comprehensive Configuration Management (CCM), and for those systems this step is not required.
Prepare Broadcom Multiple Boot Agent for FCoE Boot
1. During POST, press
CTRL+S
at the Broadcom NetXtreme Ethernet Boot Agent banner to invoke the CCM utility.
