Information About Fiber Channel Ports on Cisco Nexus 2348UPQ
Cisco Nexus 2348UPQ FEX ASIC supports native FC ports. This feature was introduced in 7.3(0)N1(1).
There are 48 host Interface (HIF) ports and six 40-G Network Interface (NI) ports. HIF ports are unified ports that enable a combination of 1 or 10-G Ethernet and 2, 4, 8, or 16G FC interfaces. You can convert and use the HIF ports as FC ports. You can configure the HIF ports to run 2, 4, 8, or 16-G FCs.
Note |
If you reload only the switch, the FEX will not be reloaded. The port type conversion will not take place on the FEX unless you reload the FEX. |
The FC ports on Nexus 2348UPQ are supported only on the Cisco Nexus 5600 switches.
Guidelines and Limitations
Cisco Nexus 2348UPQ FEX with FC interfaces has the following guidelines and limitations:
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FEX number (ID) range is from 100 to 130.
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You can configure only odd-numbered HIF ports for the 16-G FC. The adjacent even-numbered ports must be changed to the out-of-service state.
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When there is a combination of both FC and Ethernet ports, there can only be one set of contiguous FC ports and one set of contiguous Ethernet ports. The FC ports should be the first set of ports. FC ports always start from port 1.
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FC ports must be configured in groups of 4 ports.
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When the speed is Auto , the 16-G port comes up at 8-G speed. For the ports to come up at 16-G speed, use the switchport speed 16000 command to explicitly set the speed to 16-G.
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Configuration of the FC-HIF ports must be the same in both the primary and the secondary virtual PortChannel (vPC) switches. For example, the port speed, port mode, port vSAN and so on.
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Any port range that is not explicitly configured with a port type is set to the other type on reload. For example, if ports 25 to 48 are explicitly configured as Ethernet, then ports 1 to 24 will be set to type FC on reload.
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In the Active-Active FEX configuration with FC ports, the port-conversion CLI should be configured on both the vPC peer switches.
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You cannot connect the NPV or NPIV device to the FC ports in the Cisco N2348UPQ FEX, but you can connect it directly to the the NPIV enabled parent switch of the Cisco Nexus 2348UPQ FEX.
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We recommend that you operate the uplink port at 40-G speed. If you use the uplink in 10-G mode there will be over subscription.
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When an odd-numbered HIF port is configured as 16-G FC, the even-numbered HIF port next to it cannot be used either as an Ethernet port or as an FC port. For the FC-FEX HIF odd-numbered port to operate at 16 Gbps speed, you must place the immediately succeeding even-numbered port in the ' out-of-service ’ state. This restriction does not apply for 2, 4, or 8-G speed.
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Interface-based zoning using FC-FEX ports is not supported.
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F-port trunking and F-port channel are not supported on FC-FEX ports.
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For FC traffic, only Source IDentifier (SID) / Destination IDentifier (DID) based load-balancing is supported.
Fiber Channel Port Representation
The FC HIF ports on the FEX are represented on the switch through the following parameters:
fc FEX number/mod-number/port-number
For example, fc 100/1/1
Buffer-to-Buffer Credits
Buffer-to-buffer credits (BB_credits) are a flow-control mechanism to ensure that Fibre Channel interfaces do not drop frames. BB_credits are negotiated on a per-hop basis.
The default value of receive BB_credit is 32 and the maximum value is 128. The range is from 1 to 128.
Supported Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP)
The supported SFPs are: DS-SFP-FC16G-SW, DS-SFP-FC8G-SW, and DS-SFP-FC4G-SW.
SPAN Destinations for Fiber Channel-FEX Ports
SPAN destinations refer to the interfaces that monitor source ports. The Cisco Nexus 5600 Series switch supports Ethernet and Fibre Channel interfaces as SPAN destinations.
Source SPAN |
Destination SPAN |
Fibre Channel (HIF Port) | Ethernet (Base Port) |
Fibre Channel (HIF Port) | Ethernet (HIF Port) |