In this course, you will learn about the Cisco Multilayer Director Switch (MDS) family of Fibre Channel switches. This list includes the Cisco MDS 9700 Series, Cisco MDS 9700 Line Cards, Cisco MDS 9200 Multiservice Switches, Cisco 9300 Series Multilayer Fabric Switches, and Cisco MDS 9100 Series Multilayer Fabric Switches.

The serial connectivity of a Fibre Channel provides a mechanism for transporting Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI) information across high-speed networks. Fibre Channel provides high-speed transport for the SCSI payload but overcomes the distance and limitations that come with parallel SCSI technology. An initiator is the consumer of storage, typically a server that includes an adapter card that is called a host bus adapter (HBA). The initiator “initiates” a connection over the fabric to one or more ports on the storage system, which are called target ports. Target ports are the ports on your storage system that deliver storage volumes that are called target devices or logical unit numbers (LUNs) to the initiators.

Fibre Channel zoning allows you to partition a Fibre Channel fabric into one or more zones. Each zone defines a set of Fibre Channel initiators and Fibre Channel targets that can communicate with each other in a VSAN. Zoning also enables you to set up access control between hosts and storage devices or user groups. You will discover how to configure the Fibre Channel SAN switching features on Cisco Nexus 9000 Series switches to support a design requirement that is based on Fibre Channel.

By default, Cisco Multilayer Director Switch (Cisco MDS) devices operate in Fibre Channel switching mode, which provides standard Fibre Channel switching capability and features. In NPV mode, the edge switch relays the fabric login (FLOGI) process from server-side ports to the core switch. The core N-Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) switch provides F-Port functionality (such as login and port security) and all the Fibre Channel switching capabilities. The edge switch appears to the core switch as a Fibre Channel host and to its connected devices as a regular Fibre Channel switch. N-Port Virtualization (NPV) alleviates the domain ID limit by sharing the domain ID of the core switch among multiple edge switches. The edge switch will then convert the FLOGI login to a fabric discovery (FDISC) login and allow the login to proceed up the NPV uplink. You can connect several NPV uplinks to a single core switch or director or to several core directors. The Cisco implementation allows connectivity from each edge switch to multiple core directors. Core NPIV directors must be part of the same fabric. In this module, you will explore the Cisco MDS NPV and NPIV modes, review the devices that support this feature, and learn to configure NPV and NPIV modes.

Ethernet and Fibre Channel hardware and protocol requirements prevent several native protocols from existing on the same hardware physical links. The need for I/O consolidation of these protocols introduced a solution that uses encapsulation of one protocol in another to provide connectivity. In this course, you will learn about the Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) protocol functions and hardware adapters that support FCoE. You will also see the protocols that require support on the Converged Network Adapter (CNA). You will learn the FCoE encapsulation features and the supporting protocols that enable the reliable communication that the Fibre Channel Protocol requires.