HP Cisco MDS 9020 Cisco MDS 9000 Family Fabric Manager Configuration Guide - R - Page 445

Chapter 21 Configuring N Port Virtualization About NPV Send documentation comments to [email protected] NPV Mode A switch is in NPV mode after a user has enabled NPV and the switch has successfully rebooted. NPV mode applies to an entire switch. All end devices connected to a switch that is in NPV mode must log in as an N port to use this feature (loop-attached devices are not supported). All links from the edge switches (in NPV mode) to the NPV core switches are established as NP ports (not E ports), which are used for typical interswitch links. NPIV is used by the switches in NPV mode to log in to multiple end devices that share a link to the NPV core switch. Note In-order data delivery is not required in NPV mode because the exchange between two end devices always takes the same uplink to the core from the NPV device. For traffic beyond the NPV device, core switches will enforce in-order delivery if needed and/or configured. NP Ports An NP port (proxy N port) is a port on a device that is in NPV mode and connected to the NPV core switch using an F port. NP ports behave like N ports except that in addition to providing N port behavior, they also function as proxies for multiple, physical N ports. NP Links An NP link is basically an NPIV uplink to a specific end device. NP links are established when the uplink to the NPV core switch comes up; the links are terminated when the uplink goes down. Once the uplink is established, the NPV switch performs an internal FLOGI to the NPV core switch, and then (if the FLOGI is successful) registers itself with the NPV core switch's name server. Subsequent FLOGIs from end devices in this NP link are converted to FDISCs. For more details refer to the "Internal FLOGI Parameters" section on page 21-3. Server links are uniformly distributed across the NP links. All the end devices behind a server link will be mapped to only one NP link. Internal FLOGI Parameters When an NP port comes up, the NPV device first logs itself in to the NPV core switch and sends a FLOGI request that includes the following parameters: • The fWWN (fabric port WWN) of the NP port used as the pWWN in the internal login. • The VSAN-based sWWN (switch WWN) of the NPV device used as nWWN (node WWN) in the internal FLOGI. After completing its FLOGI request, the NPV device registers itself with the fabric name server using the following additional parameters: • Switch name and interface name (for example, fc1/4) of the NP port is embedded in the symbolic port name in the name server registration of the NPV device itself. • The IP address of the NPV device is registered as the IP address in the name server registration of the NPV device. OL-17256-03, Cisco MDS NX-OS Release 4.x Cisco MDS 9000 Family Fabric Manager Configuration Guide 21-3