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Cornelis Technical Documentation

5.2. Virtual Fabrics

Virtual Fabrics (vFabrics) bring many of the capabilities of Ethernet virtual LANs (VLANs) to the Omni-Path Fabric.

Using vFabrics, the administrator may slice up (partition) the physical fabric into many overlapping virtual fabrics. The administrator's selections determine how the Omni-Path Technology-specific configuration of the fabric is performed.

The goal of vFabrics is to permit multiple applications to be run on the same fabric at the same time with limited interference. The administrator can control the degree of isolation.

As in Ethernet VLANs, a given node may be in one or more vFabrics. vFabrics may have overlapping or completely independent membership. When using IPoIB in a fabric, typically each vFabric represents a unique IP subnet, in the same way a unique subnet is assigned to different VLANs.

Each vFabric can be assigned Quality of Service (QoS) and security policies to control how common resources in the fabric are shared among vFabrics.

The following table summarizes the provisioning procedures that can be found in this chapter for quick reference.

Table 7. Provisioning Procedures

Procedure

Reference

Creating a QOSGroup

Section 5.2.1.2

Securing the default vFabric (also a security task)

Section 5.2.1.3

Creating vFabrics

Section 5.2.1.4

Adding and removing virtual fabrics (including QOSGroups)

Section 5.2.11.1

Modifying the vFabric configuration file for multiple vFabrics

Section 5.2.11.2

Defining a multi-tenant fabric

Section 5.2.1.5

  • Create tenant vFabrics

Section 5.2.1.5.1

  • Display and edit the contents of the vFabrics XML files (Tenant 1 and Tenant 2)

Section 5.2.1.5.2

  • Add nodes to tenant vFabric configurations (Port GUIs)

Section 5.2.1.5.3

  • Create the storage vFabric

Section 5.2.1.5.4

  • Change the IP address for IB interfaces on storage nodes

Section 5.2.1.5.5

  • Create additional IB interfaces on tenant vFabric nodes

Section 5.2.1.5.6

  • Secure the admin vFabric (also a security task)

Section 5.2.1.5.7

  • Test vFabrics for multi-tenants

Section 5.2.1.5.8

Deleting tenant vFabrics

Section 5.2.1.6