sun
   microsystems              Systems Architecture Committee

_________________________________________________________________

Subject:       N_Port_ID Virtualization for Solaris

Submitted by:  Aaron Dailey

File:          PSARC/2007/501/opinion.ms

Date:          February 20th, 2008.

Committee:     Mark  Carlson  (opinion  written  by  Garrett
               D'Amore), Kais Belgaied.

Product Approval Committee:

               Solaris PAC
               solaris-pac-opinion@sun.com

1.  Summary

N_Port_ID Virtualization (NPIV)  allows  one  Fibre  Channel
port to represent many physical ports, thus virtualizing the
hardware.  NPIV is especially  useful  for  virtual  machine
environments.

2.  Decision & Precedence Information

The project is approved as specified in reference [1].

The project may be delivered in a minor release  of  the  ON
consolidation.

3.  Interfaces

The project exports the following interfaces.

_____________________________________________________________________________
|                            Interfaces Exported                            |
|______________________|_________________|__________________________________|
|Interface             |  Classification |  Comments                        |
|______________________|_________________|__________________________________|
|FCA                   |  Project Private|  Specified in [2].               |
|HBA-API extensions    |  Project Private|  Specified in [3].               |
|fcadm command line    |  Committed      |  See [4].                        |
|fcadm output          |  Uncommitted    |  See [4].                        |
|fcinfo output         |  Uncommitted    |  See [4].                        |
|fcadm SCF             |  Project Private|  Storage for NPIV WWWN.          |
|xenstore              |  Volatile       |  Changes for existen Xen database|
|______________________|_________________|__________________________________|

PSARC/2007/501               Copyright 2008 Sun Microsystems

                           - 2 -

_____________________________________________________________________________
|                            Interfaces Exported                            |
|______________________|_________________|__________________________________|
|Interface             |  Classification |  Comments                        |
|______________________|_________________|__________________________________|
|xm input/output       |  Volatile       |  Xen CLI                         |
|/usr/lib/xennpivd file|  Project Private|  Xen reconfiguration daemon      |
|xnpivd file           |  Project Private|  Xen reconfiguration driver      |
|______________________|_________________|__________________________________|

The project imports the following interfaces.

____________________________________________________________
|                   Interfaces Imported                    |
|________________|________________|________________________|
|Interface       |  Classification|  Comments              |
|________________|________________|________________________|
|T11 NPIV Specs  |  Standard      |  From the T11 web site.|
|libhbaaapi(3LIB)|  Standard      |  Derived from T11 FC-MI|
|________________|________________|________________________|

4.  Opinion

4.1.  Configuration and Locking

During inception, several questions were raised about a con-
figuration  file, and locking of the configuration database.
The  project  team  decided  to  change  to   use   standard
libscf(3LIB) APIs for this, resolving the issue suitably.

4.2.  Daemon Startup

During inception, a question was raised pertaining to daemon
startup.  The project team's response is that SMF is used to
start the deamon, and only for Xen.

4.3.  NPIV Configuration and Zones

During inception a  member  asked  what  the  administrative
experience  would  be for a zone when an NPIV device is con-
figured for the zone, but the underlying HBA doesn't support
NPIV.  Offline, the project team decided to reduce the scope
of the project to exclude zones.  This question will need to
be  answered  in  another  case  if/when  the  project  team
revisits support for zones.

4.4.  Relationship to Other Virtualized IO Projects

A member raised a concern about  the  relationship  of  this
project  to other projects, such as Crossbow, which are also
providing facilities for  IO  virtualization.   The  project

PSARC/2007/501               Copyright 2008 Sun Microsystems

                           - 3 -

team  examined  Crossbow in particular, and found some simi-
larities, but there were enough  differences  as  well.   No
action  to  unify  interfaces between networking and storage
virtualization was requested, and none was taken.

5.  Minority Opinion(s)

None.

6.  Advisory Information

None.

7.  Appendices

7.1.  Appendix A: Technical Changes Required

None.

7.2.  Appendix B: Technical Changes Advised

None.

7.3.  Appendix C: Reference Material

Unless stated otherwise, path names are relative to the case
directory PSARC/2007/501.

1    Functional specifcation.
     File: commitment.materials/NPIV_Func_spec.pdf

2    FCA Interface Changs to Support NPIV.
     File:      commitment.materials/NPIV_FCA_Interface_Doc-
     0.2.1.pdf

3    fcinfo, fcadm manual page with changes.
     File: commitment.materials/fcinfo.man

4    PSARC 20 Questions.
     File: commitment.materials/psarc_20q_npiv

5    npivxend manual page.
     File: commitment.materials/npivxend.man

6    xenstore manual page.
     File: commitment.materials/xenstore.man

7    xm manual page.
     File: commitment.materials/xm.man

8    Issues file.
     File: issues

PSARC/2007/501               Copyright 2008 Sun Microsystems