Cisco NX-OS Release 5.0(3)N2(1) and later releases, FCoE NPV is supported on the Cisco Nexus 5000 Series devices. The FCoE NPV feature is an enhanced form of FCoE Initialization Protocol (FIP) snooping that provides a secure method to connect FCoE-capable hosts to an FCoE-capable FCoE forwarder (FCF) device. The FCoE NPV feature provides the following benefits :
* FCoE NPV does not have the management and troubleshooting issues that are inherent to managing hosts remotely at the FCF.
* FCoE NPV implements FIP snooping as an extension to the NPV function while retaining the traffic-engineering, vsan-management, administration, and trouble shooting aspects of NPV.
* FCoE NPV and NPV together allow communication through FC and FCoE ports at the same time, which provides a smooth transition when moving from FC to FCoE topologies.
