topic Question about CNA adapters in ONTAP Hardware

Question about CNA adapters

dspare — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 14:04:45 GMT

I have a few basic questions about CNA cards to make sure I have the fundamentals down correctly...

Let's take for example a Dual-port CNA card for the following scenarios/questions.

-Is it true to say that this card can either run both ports as only ONE personality -- for example: as a regular NIC for Ethernet traffic at 10g speeds, or as an FCoE port at 10g speeds, or can you mix and match and have one port set with one personality and the other with a different one?

-Can you configure the ports to be an FC HBA personality for running regular FC protocol? Is the fact that the adapter is a CNA adapter mean it is meant for JUST regular Ethernet or FCoE?

I hope my questions made sense.

Thanks!

Re: Question about CNA adapters

aborzenkov — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 07:45:53 GMT

Are you speaking about FAS adapter or server adapter? What is exact model number?

Re: Question about CNA adapters

kahuna — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 13:51:24 GMT

Both ports on ASIC must be set to same personality
Changing one port personality will change the second port to same personality

"Can you configure the ports to be an FC HBA personality for running regular FC protocol?"

yes. set the adapter to FC and use SFP+

the command:

ucadmin modify [ -m mode ] [ -t type ] [ -f ] adapter

description:

Changes the adapter configuration. The mode value refers to the personality mode of the adapter and can be FC or CNA. CNA will be used for FCoE, iscsi or NAS. The type value refers to the FC-4 type of the adapter and can be initiator or target. The -f option suppresses confirmation prompts. Any changes to the adapter mode or type will require a reboot for the changes to take effect. The adapter must also be offline before any changes can be made. When the adapter type is initiator, use the storage disable adapter command to bring the adapter offline. When the adapter type is target, use the fcp config command to bring the adapter offline.