Exchanging VNIC Information by Using VDP

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The VIS discovery and configuration protocol (VDP) enables the exchange of VNIC information, also called VSI, between the system (station) and the external switch or (bridge). VDP itself consists of VDP type-length value (TLV) units. The VDP TLV units are exchanged between station and bridge when you create or delete a VNIC.

The following components are involved in the VSI information exchange between server and switch:

A VSI profile which consists of link properties that have been configured for the specific VNIC. A system can have as many VSI profiles as there are configured VNICs.
A VSI identifier that uniquely identifies the profile. In Oracle Solaris, this identifier is the MAC address of the VNIC.
The VSI Manager manages multiple VSI profiles on the system. It maps the VSI Type ID - VSI Version with a specific set of VNIC properties. In Oracle Solaris, the default VSI Manager is oracle_v1 with a 3-byte encoding.
A VSI Manager ID identifies the VSI Manager that is relevant to a specific VSI Type ID - VSI Version pair. Oracle Solaris has defined a default VSI Manager ID called ORACLE_VSIMGR_V1.

Note - Currently, there are no defined standards for defining a VSI profile and its specific properties. The definition of VSI types is vendor-specific and is closely linked to a VSI Manager ID.

The VSI Manager oracle_v1 supports the following properties:

Bandwidth limit
Bandwidth share
Link speed of the underlying link
Maximum transmission unit (MTU) of the VNIC

By default, an Oracle Solaris host sends the following elements to the external switch:

Oracle VSI Manager – oracle_v1
VSI Type ID – VNIC properties encoded by using oracle_v1 encoding
VSI Version – Always 0

The external switch is configured to support the Oracle VSI Manager (oracle_v1), which the switch uses to determine the properties encoded in the VSI Type ID. Then the switch applies the property settings to packets destined for the specific VNIC.

An Oracle organization-specific OUI TLV unit follows the VSI Manager ID TLV to indicate that it is the Oracle-specific VSI Manager ID. The absence of the Oracle specific TLV unit in the response from the switch indicates to the Oracle Solaris host that the switch does not support Oracle VSI Manager (encodings). Oracle Switch ES1-24 supports the Oracle VSI Manager, oracle_v1. For more information about configuration of EVB on Oracle Switch ES1-24, see Configuring EVB in Sun Ethernet Fabric Operating System, EVB Administration Guide.

Note - In addition to supporting the VDP and ECP protocols, to interoperate with Oracle Solaris system, external switches must also support ORACLE_VSIMGR_V1, which is the default Oracle VSI Manager ID, and the Oracle organizationally unique identifier (OUI) TLV (subtype VDP_ORACLEOUI_VSIMGR_SUBTYPE, which is used to carry the encoding information).