What is a TE port

[Michael1975]

I looked online for what a TE port is. But, every place I look mentions a VSAN which is refers to storage or VM machines. I know that I have seen TE ports in a environment that does not use VSAN. I am not understanding what VSAN is when it comes to networking. Is it really to do with storage or VM machines? 

[Torbjørn]

In fibre channel networking the port connected towards another fibre channel switch is called an Expansion port, or E port. If that port is configured as a trunk it becomes a Trunking Expansion port, or TE port. So a TE port is a fibre channel networking concept, not a VMware VSAN specific concept.

There are probably more recent Cisco docs describing this, but this is the best I can find at the moment: https://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/datacenter/nexus5000/sw/configuration/guide/cli_rel_4_1/Cisco_Nexus_5000_Series_Switch_CLI_Software_Configuration_Guide_chapter33.html

[Michael1975]

I looked at the article. It says VSAN trunking, so does this mean that it has nothing to do with network storage or VM machines? 

[Michael1975]

I am getting stuck on this VSAN word. Maybe, this has nothing to do with network storage or a VM machine. It is just where ever I look for the word VSAN, I always find something that reference's VMs or network storage.

[Torbjørn · Accepted solution]

VSAN in this context is not equal to the VMware product VSAN. To quote the documentation linked below:

"A VSAN is a virtual storage area network (SAN). A SAN is a dedicated network that interconnects hosts and storage devices primarily to exchange SCSI traffic." ....  "VSANs provide isolation among devices that are physically connected to the same fabric. With VSANs you can create multiple logical SANs over a common physical infrastructure."

It's VLANs, but for fibre channel. It uses enhanced ISL(which you might know from ethernet switching) as the trunking protocol.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/mds9000/sw/nx-os/configuration/guides/fabric/fabric_fm_4_2_published/fm_fabric/vsan.html