63 results about "Fibre Channel over Ethernet" patented technology

The present invention provides methods and devices for implementing a Low Latency Ethernet (“LLE”) solution, also referred to herein as a Data Center Ethernet (“DCE”) solution, which simplifies the connectivity of data centers and provides a high bandwidth, low latency network for carrying Ethernet and storage traffic. Some aspects of the invention involve transforming FC frames into a format suitable for transport on an Ethernet. Some preferred implementations of the invention implement multiple virtual lanes (“VLs”) in a single physical connection of a data center or similar network. Some VLs are “drop” VLs, with Ethernet-like behavior, and others are “no-drop” lanes with FC-like behavior. Some preferred implementations of the invention provide guaranteed bandwidth based on credits and VL. Active buffer management allows for both high reliability and low latency while using small frame buffers. Preferably, the rules for active buffer management are different for drop and no drop VLs.

A Data Center Ethernet (“DCE”) network and related methods and device are provided. A DCE network simplifies the connectivity of data centers and provides a high bandwidth, low latency network for carrying Ethernet, storage and other traffic. A Fiber Channel (“FC”) frame, including FC addressing information, is encapsulated in an Ethernet frame for transmission on a Data Center Ethernet (“DCE”) network. The Ethernet address fields may indicate that the frame includes an FC frame, e.g., by the use of a predetermined Organization Unique Identifier (“OUI”) code in the D_MAC field, but also include Ethernet addressing information. Accordingly, the encapsulated frames can be forwarded properly by switches in the DCE network whether or not these switches are configured for operation according to the FC protocol. Accordingly, only a subset of Ethernet switches in the DCE network needs to be FC-enabled. Only switches so configured will require an FC Domain_ID.

Methods are provided for creating virtual links between Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) nodes. FIP Discovery Advertisement frames are received from multiple FCoE device interconnection apparatus (FIA). The FIP Discovery Advertisement frames comprises source Ethernet MAC addresses, a destination Ethernet MAC address of All-ENode-MACs, Fabric FIP descriptor, and a Priority FIP descriptor. A list is stored of one or more of the source Ethernet MAC address, FIP Priority descriptor, and FIP Fabric descriptor for each unique FIP Discovery Advertisement frame received as indicated by the Fabric descriptor. The Name Server is queried for each source Ethernet MAC address in said storage. For all FCoE devices that match in more that one Name Server, connect to those FCoE devices using the highest priority Ethernet MAC address from matching list items.

Methods, apparatus and systems are provided for forwarding Fiber Channel Initialization Protocol (FIP) and Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) frames by a FCoE device interconnection apparatus (FIA) and a Fiber Channel over Ethernet device interconnection apparatus controller (FIAC). In one aspect of the invention, a command is sent from a FIAC to the FIA to set the frame processing apparatus to identify received FIP frames, which are forwarded with the original destination and source Ethernet Media Access Control (MAC) addresses. A command is sent from the FIAC to the FIA to identify received FCoE frames to replace the source and destination Ethernet MAC addresses. When a FCoE frame is received by the FIA, the source and destination Ethernet MAC addresses are replaced, such as where the destination Ethernet MAC address of the received matched FCoE frame is replaced by the MAC address assigned to the desired end port. The FCoE frame is forwarded to a destination FCoE device.