什么是NPIV

ESX3.5可以支持NPIV,通常VM是通过VMFS来得到磁盘空间的，有了NPIV,则VM可以直接从SAN得到LUN, 注意这里并不是用RDM映射得到。以下是来自wiki的对NPIV的解释：

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N_Port ID Virtualization or NPIV is a facility allowing multiple IDs to share a single physical N_Port. This allows multiple Fibre Channel initiators to occupy a single physical port, easing hardware requirements in design, especially where are called for. NPIV is defined by the .

Normally N_Port initialization proceeds like this:

• N_Port sends FLOGI to address 0xFFFFFE to obtain a valid address
• N_Port sends PLOGI to address 0xFFFFFC to register this address with the name server
• N_Port sends SCR to address 0xFFFFFD to register for state change notifications

However with NPIV it may continue like this:

• N_Port sends FDISC to address 0xFFFFFE to obtain an additional address
• N_Port sends PLOGI to address 0xFFFFFC to register his additional address with the name server
• N_Port sends SCR to address 0xFFFFFD to register for state change notifications.
• ... (repeat FDISC/PLOGI/SCR for next address)

FDISC is abbreviation of "Discover Fabric Service Parameters", which is a misleading name in this context. It works just like FLOGI.