About VFCs
Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) allows Fibre Channel and Ethernet traffic to be carried on the same physical Ethernet connection between the switch and the servers.
The Fibre Channel portion of FCoE is configured as a virtual Fibre Channel (VFC) interface. Logical Fibre Channel features (such as interface mode) can be configured on VFC interfaces.
Before you can use a VFC interface, it must be bound to a physical Ethernet interface that is directly connected to a converged network adapter (CNA). The CNA makes the connection to the Fibre Channel Forwarder (FCF) over a virtual port channel (vPC).
The following switch port modes are used to bind the VFC interface:
- Virtual fabric (VF) port—Connects to a peripheral device (host or disk) operating as an N port. A VF port can be attached to only one N port.
- Virtual expansion (VE) port—Acts as an expansion port in an FCoE network. VE ports can connect multiple FCoE switches in the network. You can bind a VE port to a physical Ethernet port or a port channel.
In Cisco UCS Director, VFC configuration is supported on the following Cisco network devices:
- Cisco Nexus 3000 Series switches
- Cisco Nexus 5000, 5500, and 5672 Series switches
- Cisco Nexus 7000 Series switches
- Cisco MDS 9100 Series switches
- Cisco MDS 9500 Series switches
- Cisco MDS 9700 Series switches
Note |
For more detailed information about VFCs and configuration guidelines for VFCs, see the Cisco NX-OS Software Configuration Guides. |