NPIV
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
N_Port ID Virtualization or NPIV is a Fibre Channel facility allowing multiple N_Port IDs to share a single physical N_Port. This allows multiple Fibre Channel initiators to occupy a single physical port, easing hardware requirements in Storage area network design, especially where virtual SANs are called for. NPIV is defined by the Technical Committee T11.
Normally N_Port initialization proceeds like this:
- N_Port sends FLOGI to address 0xFFFFFE to obtain a valid address
- N_Port sends PLOGI to address 0xFFFFFC to register this address with the name server
- N_Port sends SCR to address 0xFFFFFD to register for state change notifications
However with NPIV it may continue like this:
- N_Port sends FDISC to address 0xFFFFFE to obtain an additional address
- N_Port sends PLOGI to address 0xFFFFFC to register his additional address with the name server
- N_Port sends SCR to address 0xFFFFFD to register for state change notifications.
- ... (repeat FDISC/PLOGI/SCR for next address)
FDISC is abbreviation of "Discover Fabric Service Parameters", which is a misleading name in this context. It works just like FLOGI.
