Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switch Fabric Manager Software Configuration Guide, NX-OS 4.0 (OL-16598-01, June 2008)

CHAPTER
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9-1
Nexus 5000 Series Switch Fabric Manager Software Configuration Guide
OL-16598-01
9
Configuring Virtual Interfaces
This section describes the configuration of virtual interfaces on the Nexus 5000 Series switches. It
includes the following sections:
• Information About Virtual Interfaces, page 9-1
• Configuring Virtual Interfaces, page 9-1
Information About Virtual Interfaces
Nexus 5000 Series switches support I/O consolidation (IOC), which allows Fibre Channel and Ethernet
traffic to be carried on the same physical Ethernet connection between the switch and the servers. For
additional information about IOC, see Chapter 1, “Product Overview.”
The concept of virtual interface is used to emulate the logical connections that are carried on the same
physical Ethernet. The Nexus 5000 Series switch supports virtual Ethernet and virtual Fibre Channel
interfaces.
For configuration purposes, a virtual Ethernet or virtual Fibre Channel interface is implemented as a
Layer 2 subinterface of the physical Ethernet interface. Logical features (such as VLAN and ACL) that
can be configured on Ethernet interfaces can be configured on individual virtual Ethernet interfaces.
Logical Fibre Channel features (such as VSAN) can be configured on virtual Fibre Channel interfaces.
Note Virtual interfaces are created with the administrative state set to down. You need to explicitly configure
the administrative state to bring the virtual interface into operation.
Configuring Virtual Interfaces
This section describes how to configure virtual interfaces, and it includes the following topics:
• Creating a Virtual Interface Group, page 9-2
• Using the Virtual Interface Group Wizard, page 9-3
• Binding a VIG to a Physical Ethernet Interface, page 9-4
• Deleting a Virtual Interface Group, page 9-4
• Using the Virtual Interface Wizard, page 9-5
• Creating a Virtual Ethernet Interface, page 9-6