why i can not connect Nexus switch directly to SAN using FCoE Port?

[Jacob Samuel]

Hi
Sorry if i am wrong. Do we really need an MDS 9000 series switch to connect to any SAN Storage? why cant we connect directly to a N5K switch which has FCoE capability? What exactly FCoE does?

Jacob

[dynamoxxx]

you don't have to buy MDS if Nexus capacity is sufficient for you. You can connect storage/systems that use native FC or FCOE interfaces

[Vu Phan]

Hello Jacob,

Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) is an encapsulation of Fibre Channel frames over Ethernet networks. This allows Fibre Channel to use 10 Gigabit Ethernet.

Currently MDS9000 is only support pure Fiber Channel. But in the future MDS9000 will support FCOE direct connect with additional Line Card dedicate to FCOE

You don't need MDS9000 series switch to connect to any SAN storage unless you have existing SAN infrastructure or require higher bandwidth.

The N5K support the following methods:

- If you have existing SAN storage on MDS9000, you can ISL from MDS to N5K using two methods, E port trunking and Fport-trunking. require FET (Fiber extension card). Enable and configure FCOE

- You can directly connect SAN storage to FET card and manage your storage from N5K. Need to enable and configure FCOE

- If you don't have the above and you storage has FCOE capable (builtin). You can connect storage FCOE port directly to N5K 10GB ethernet port. Enable and configure FCOE from N5K.

Hope this answer you question.