Virtual Interfaces - Cisco AP775A - Nexus Converged Network Switch 5010 Configuration Manual

Virtual Interfaces

New Technologies in the Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
The server OS is not aware of the FCoE encapsulation (see the following figure). At the switch, the incoming
Ethernet port separates the Ethernet and Fibre Channel traffic (using EtherType to differentiate the frames).
Ethernet frames and Fibre Channel frames are switched to their respective network-side interfaces.
Figure 1: I/O Consolidation
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series switches provide quality of service (QoS) capabilities to ensure lossless or best-effort
service across the switch. For Fibre Channel traffic (FCoE) you should apply the lossless QoS classes. By
default, best-effort service is applied to all of the Ethernet traffic. You can configure different QoS levels for
specific classes of Ethernet traffic.
Virtual Interfaces
When FCoE is enabled, a physical Ethernet cable carries traffic for a logical Fibre Channel connection.
The Cisco Nexus 5000 Series switch uses virtual interfaces to represent the logical Fibre Channel connections.
For configuration purposes, virtual Fibre Channel interfaces are implemented as Layer 2 subinterfaces of the
physical Ethernet interface.
Ethernet features (such as the link debounce timer and VLAN membership) are configured on the physical
Ethernet interface. Logical Fibre Channel features (such as VSAN membership) are configured on the virtual
Fibre Channel interfaces.
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switch CLI Software Configuration Guide
OL-16597-01 3