What native Fibre Channel technology facilitates connecting multiple Fibre Channel devices behind a single FC address?
A. N-Port Virtualization
B. N-Port Identification Virtualization
C. Fibre Channel Arbitrary Loop
D. Fiber Channel over Ethernet
I think it is NPV, since NPIV allows to virtualize the N-Ports and assign multiple (not singel) FCIDs :
“NPIV allows a Fibre Channel host connection or N-Port to be assigned multiple N-Port IDs or Fibre Channel IDs (FCID) over a single link.”
but…. are NPV and NPIV native FC Technologyes??? uhhmmm
Obviously C is a ridiculous answer. Clearly it’s A or B, but as is often the case, the question is worded badly and neither answer is definitely right. B seems more likely, but A is also possible. The question should have used a more accurate description of either NPV or NPIV. NPV is on the edge switch, acting as a “single device” proxying many, while NPIV allows a port to receive requests from many hosts. Still, since it’s a single port, it can also be inferred that there is a single device. Still leaning towards B.
It is NPIV and not FC-AL.
NPIV allows single N-Port to have multiple WWPNs and multiple N-Port_IDs associated with it. NPIV also uses the 24-bit addressing which is the same address size/scheme as a N-Port ID assigned by FLOGI for example.
FC-AL does not function in the above manner.
N-Port ID Virtualization (NPIV)
NPIV allows a Fibre Channel host connection or N-Port to be assigned multiple N-Port IDs or Fibre Channel IDs (FCID) over a single link. All FCIDs assigned can now be managed on a Fibre Channel fabric as unique entities on the same physical host. Different applications can be used in conjunction with NPIV. In a virtual machine environment where many host operating systems or applications are running on a physical host, each virtual machine can now be managed independently from zoning, aliasing, and security perspectives.
N-Port Virtualizer (NPV)
An extension to NPIV is the N-Port Virtualizer feature. The N-Port Virtualizer feature allows the blade switch or top-of-rack fabric device to behave as an NPIV-based host bus adapter (HBA) to the core Fibre Channel director. The device aggregates the locally connected host ports or N-Ports into one or more uplinks (pseudo-interswitch links) to the core switches. Whereas NPIV is primarily a host-based solution, NPV is primarily a switch-based technology. It is designed to reduce switch management and overhead in larger Storage Area Network (SAN) deployments. Consider that every Fibre Channel switch in a fabric needs a different domain ID, and that the total number of domain IDs in a fabric is limited. In some cases, this limit can be fairly low depending upon the devices attached to the fabric. The problem, though, is that you often need to add Fibre Channel switches to scale the size of your fabric. There is, therefore, an inherent conflict between trying to reduce the overall number of switches to keep the domain ID count low while also needing to add switches to have a sufficiently high port count. NPV is intended to address this problem.
I think the answer should be A -> NPV. NPV is an extension to NPIV. It is the NPV switch that connects multiple FC devices to the core switch. NPIV is a sharing technology. NPV is a connection technology.
NPIV or N_Port ID Virtualization is a Fibre Channel feature whereby multiple Fibre Channel node port IDs can share a single physical N_Port.
Thanks Anton. Why cant you answer all questions? Yours answers seems correct.
Answer is B.
Agree.
Agree