Manual and automatic uplink pinning

Using the end-host mode (NPV), each server is pinned to an uplink port based on Round-robin algorithm. Like Ethernet end-host mode, pin groups can be configured as a static pin group or dynamic pin group. The default configuration is dynamic pin group.

Dynamic pin groups

This is the default pin group setting. In dynamic pinning, the Fabric Interconnect automatically binds server vHBAs to uplink Fabric Interconnect FC/FCoE ports.

Failure response

In case of an uplink failure, server vHBAs are re-pinned to the remaining uplinks of the same Fabric Interconnect. In case of a complete Fabric Interconnect failure, the operating system (Windows, Linux, or hypervisors) relies on its multipath drives (such as MPIO and EMC PowerPath) to re-route I/O for the failed path. If the operating system configuration is missing, Fiber Channel communication will fail until one Fiber Channel uplink is restored on the failed Fabric Interconnect.

This behavior is different from the...