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disk or optical virtualization. However, the recommended approach to making tape drives
available to IBM i is to use IVM.
4.11. Fibre Channel over Converged Enhanced Ethernet (FCoCEE)
In October 2009, IBM announced the availability of FCoCEE for IBM i, AIX and Linux workloads
on Power blades. FCoCEE is a new industry standard that allows a single converged adapter in
a server to send and receive both Fibre Channel (FC) and Ethernet traffic over a 10-Gb Ethernet
(10GbE) fabric. The benefits of this technology are:
•
Fewer adapters per server
•
Fewer switches and therefore lower power consumption in the datacenter
•
A single converged fabric for both FC and Ethernet traffic, enabling lower infrastructure
costs and simplified management
FCoCEE works by encapsulating a FC frame in a new type of Ethernet frame. The standard also
allows for quality of service (QoS) prioritization for both FC and Ethernet traffic. For a complete
general overview of FCoCEE, consult the Fibre Channel Industry Association’s Website at
http://www.fibrechannel.org.
All Power blades support FCoCEE through a Converged Network Adapter (CNA) – the QLogic 2-
port 10 Gb Converged Network Adapter (CFFh) for IBM BladeCenter (P/N 42C1830). For IBM i
the CNA is owned by VIOS, as with other blade server expansion adapters. VIOS then provides
disk and network virtualization to any IBM i, AIX and Linux client LPARs through the CNA. Note
that the converged adapter does not have both FC and Ethernet ports. Instead, the adapter
sends and receives both 8Gb FC and 10Gb Ethernet traffic through its two 10GbE ports using
FCoCEE frames. Traffic from the CNA is routed to a 10GbE passthrough module in I/O bays 7
and/or 9, and from there to a separate FCoCEE-capable top-of-the-rack (TOR) switch outside the
BladeCenter H. The TOR switch is capable of routing both types of traffic – 10GbE and 8Gb FC
– to separate networks connected to it. The following diagram illustrates the FCoCEE
configuration for Power blades in BladeCenter H:
