Design And Implementation Of Proxy Module And Event Handling Module In The NPV Switch

With the rapid development of the national economy, the level of enterprise information is elevating. These changes raise new requirements to the storage network of an enterprise. The time when a storage network was made up of a hard disk and a single server has gone, and is replaced by a new era in which a storage network always has large capacity, high throughput and numerous access nodes.NPV (N Port Virtualization) switch involved in this article is proposed in order to meet the increasing need of users about new network. NPV is a mode of an FCoE (Fiber Channel over Ethernet) switch. Because an FCoE switch working in this mode is usually at the edge of a storage network, so it is often known as edge switch. Another mode of FCoE switch is called Fabric. FCoE switches working in Fabric mode are often used as the core switches of a network. Each core switch with all directly connected nodes in the network composes a domain. Each domain has its own domain ID which is a unique identifier in the whole network. Compared with the FCoE Switches in the Fabric mode, NPV switches have much charicateristics. Firstly, a NPV switch does not have own domain ID. It just shares the domain ID of the core switch in the same domain as the other access nodes. Secondly, the NPV switches are not responsible for the distribution of the network address (FC_ID) for the access nodes. The network addresses of all network access nodes and N-ports on the NPV switches are allocated by the core switch in the same domain. In the process of a network access node application a network address, NPV switch is only to play the role of an agent.This article focuses on the design and implementation of proxy module and event handling module in the NPV switch. In the process of network address allocation, proxy module of NPV switch mainly complete some basic tasks including data storage, traffic mapping, and frame type conversion. Proxy module is the core module of the system. Event handling module is charge of receiving the events notified by other modules, then maintaining data structures or sending messages. NPV switch adds a mode in the original basis of the FCoE switch. It not only meets the need of users, but also helps the users to save the cost. NPV switches have high practical value.