Understanding Port Channels And Vsan Trunking - Cisco Nexus 5500 Series NX-OS Configuration Manual

Information About SAN Port Channels
of it. To the upper layer protocol, the link is still there, although the bandwidth is diminished. The routing
tables are not affected by link failure.
About NPV and NP Port Channels
Cisco Nexus devices support a maximum of four SAN port channels in NPV mode (with eight interfaces per
port channel). This means we support a maximum of 4xNP-Port-Channels on Cisco Nexus devices in NPV
mode. A port channel number refers to the unique (within each switch) identifier associated with each channel
group. This number ranges from 1 to 256.
About F and TF Port Channels
An F port channel is also a logical interface that combines a set of F ports connected to the same Fibre Channel
node and operates as one link between the F ports and the NP ports. The F port channels support bandwidth
utilization and availability like the E port channels. F port channel are mainly used to connect MDS core and
NPV switches to provide optimal bandwidth utilization and transparent failover between the uplinks of a
VSAN. An F port channel trunk combines the functionality and advantages of a TF port and an F port channel.
This logical link uses the Cisco PTP and PCP protocols over Cisco EPP (ELS). Cisco Nexus devices support
a maximum of four SAN port channels in FC switch mode, which includes F/TF-port port channels.

Understanding Port Channels and VSAN Trunking

Cisco Nexus devices implement VSAN trunking and port channels as follows:
• A SAN port channel enables several physical links to be combined into one aggregated logical link.
• An industry standard E port can link to other vendor switches and is referred to as inter-switch link
(ISL), as shown on the left side of the figure below.
• VSAN trunking enables a link transmitting frames in the EISL format to carry traffic for multiple VSAN
. When trunking is operational on an E port, that E port becomes a TE port. EISLs connects only between
Cisco switches, as shown on the right side of the figure below.
Figure 20: VSAN Trunking Only
• You can create a SAN port channel with members that are E ports, as shown on the left side of the
figure below. In this configuration, the port channel implements a logical ISL (carrying traffic for one
VSAN).
Cisco Nexus 5500 Series NX-OS SAN Switching Configuration Guide, Release 7.x
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Configuring SAN Port Channels
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