Fibre Channel over Ethernet

OpenSolaris FCoE Initiator released!

The FCoE Initiator is integrated in OpenSolaris build 122. Please follow the guidelines in Solaris Express SAN Configuration and Multipathing Guide to set up FCoE Initiator.

If you have any questions, please feel free to post them on <storage-discuss@opensolaris.org>.

OpenSolaris FCoE Target released!

The FCoE Target is integrated in OpenSolaris build 112. Please follow the guidelines in COMSTAR Admin Guide to set up COMSTAR and FCoE Target.

Introduction

Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) is a mapping of Fibre Channel over selected full duplex IEEE 802.3 networks. This would allow Fibre Channel to leverage the technology of 10GbE and future 40GbE while preserving the main parts of the Fibre Channel protocol.

FCoE Requirement
  FCoE requires lossless transport of Ethernet packets, while traditional Ethernet is lossy hence not suitable for FCoE. Lossless transportation can be achieved by either 802.1X PAUSE or Priority Flow Control (PFC).
  FC fabric controller is also required for FCoE to work. FCoE switches have FC fabric controller built in. Otherwise there has to be a bridge (or forwarder) between the lossless Ethernet and the native FC SAN, so that FC fabric controller can serve the FCoE nodes in the lossless Etherent.

Why FCoE

• I/O consolidation 
• Fewer cards per server
• Reduction in server power budget and reduced cooling requirements
• Significant reduction in the amount of cables to manage
• Seamless connectivity with existing Storage Area Networks and Ethernet Networks - customers can continue to leverage their existing FC tools, security model and infrastructure 

Project Overview

This project is a joint effort with Open-FCoE.

Three new kernel modules will be delivered:

• fcoei: Virtual FCA driver for Leadville, functioning as FCoE initiator

• fcoet: Virtual FCA driver for COMSTAR, functioning as FCoE target  

• fcoe: FCoE transport driver

As FCA drivers, fcoei and fcoet conform to standard Leadville/COMSTAR FCA
programming guide, which means no change of Leadville stack and COMSTAR
is required. Both drivers are clients of the FCoE transport driver which transmits/receives FCoE frames through GLDv3 MAC client interface. Both FCoE initiator and target are designed to work with normal Ethernet NICs and VNICs in Crossbow.  

The administration function will be implemented via new sub-commands of the fcadm utility.

Background Readings
www.fcoe.com  
www.t11.org/fcoe

Solaris Design Documents

The one-pager is a high level document used in Sun processes. Here are one-pages for FCoE Target and FCoE Initiator projects:

FCoE Target one-pager   
FCoE Initiator one-pager

The functional specification of FCoE Target is here   

Related Projects
Open-FCoE    
Crossbow  
COMSTAR