End of Availability and End of Support for FCoE on Intel Network Controllers

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article provides information on the End of Availability and End of Support for Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) on Intel Network Controllers from vSphere 6.5 and later.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5

Resolution

Due to large required investment and low market demand, in 2015, Intel decided to move the FCoE hardware offload solution to maintenance mode.

 

The impact of the change is listed in the bullets below:

• Intel does not support FCoE for these drivers from VMware ESXi 6.5 and later:
  • ixgbe
  • ixgben

• Intel will not support FCoE on ixgben drivers for ESXi 6.0 or earlier releases, should they be made available in the future.
• Intel DCB is not supported in VMware ESXi 6.5 and later, as the only use-case for DCB in VMware ESXi 6.5 is FCoE.
• The Software FCoE feature provided by VMware is not supported when using Intel network controllers.

Additional Information

Configuring Fibre Channel over Ethernet