FCoE and NPIV
IxExplorer provides GUI access to all Ixia platform functionality with full support for stateless FCoE functional and scalability testing. The FCoE and Priority Flow Control (PFC) and FCoE Initialization Protocol (FIP) features allow testing of FCoE switches running both FCoE traffic and traditional Ethernet traffic.
Supported Load Modules
The following Ixia load modules have the Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) capability:
- GXMR8-01 and GXM8XP-01, including 10GBASE-T versions LSM10GXM(R)8GBT-01
- GXMR4-01 and GXM4XP-01, including 10GBASE-T versions LSM10GXM(R)4GBT-01
- LSM10GXM2XP-01 and GXMR2-01, including 10GBASE-T versions LSM10GXM(R)2GBT-01
- LSM1000XMVDCx-01 load modules. 4-port, 8-port, 12-port, and 16-port
- LSM1000XMVDC4-NG load modules. 4-port
Data Center Mode
FCoE support requires a new port mode, Data Center Mode. You need to switch port mode between Normal Mode and Data Center Mode to use the desired features in each mode.
- Mode switching (to or from Data Center Mode) triggers an FPGA re-download.
- There is no Packet Stream Mode support in Data Center Mode; only Advanced Scheduler Mode is supported.
- Supports 4-Priority traffic mapping for frame size up to 9216-byte. The different frame size support is determined by a sub mode in Data Center Mode. This limitation applies to all frames in Data Center Mode, whether FCoE frame or not.
- Data Center Mode only supports auto instrumentation mode for both TX and RX.
- When the port is in Data Center Mode, both existing Ethernet frames and FCoE frames are generated.
Priority Traffic Generation
The scheduling function is based on the existing Advanced Scheduler. A new parameter called `Priority Group' has been added to each stream. You can map Priority Group to the priority field in the frame. The priority field in the same stream should not change (for example, if the priority is a VLAN priority field, then you cannot configure a UDF to control this field within a stream).
Priority-based Flow Control (PFC)
The Ixia port responds to either IEEE 802.3x pause frame or to IEEE 802.1Qbb Priority-based Flow Control (PFC) frame. The flow control type is determined by the selection made on the Flow Control tab of the Port Properties dialog, in IxExplorer.
IxExplorer Reference
See IxExplorer User Guide, Chapter 6 topic Frame Data for FCoE Support, subtopic Priority-based Flow Control.
Fibre Channel over Ethernet
When the port is in Data Center Mode, both existing Ethernet frames and FCoE frames are generated.
The Fibre Channel CRC is generated on the fly. This CRC is inserted at offset of Ethernet frame size minus 12 bytes. For example:
Ethernet Frame Size (bytes) |
2000 |
2001 |
2002 |
2003 |
FC-CRC Offset in FCoE Frame (bytes) |
1988 |
1989 |
1990 |
1991 |
The FC-CRC can be set to No Error or to Bad CRC.
Packet View Support
For Fibre Channel frame, there is no Extended Header and Optional Header support. It decodes only FC-2 Frame Header field.
FCoE Initialization Protocol (FIP)
FIP (FCoE Initialization Protocol) has been implemented (in addition to FCoE). It is used to discover and initialize FCoE capable entities connected to an Ethernet cloud.
IxExplorer Reference
See the IxExplorer User Guide, Chapter 6 topic Frame Data for FCoE Support.
NPIV Protocol Interface
NPIV stands for N_Port ID Virtualization. These can be used to virtually share a single physical N_Port. This allows multiple Fibre Channel initiators to occupy a single physical port, easing hardware requirements in SAN design. Up to 256 N_Port_IDs can be assigned to a single N_Port. NPIV interfaces can be configured using the Protocol Interface Wizard.
See the topic NPIV Protocol Interface.in IxExplorer User Guide.