FCoE provides increased flexibility, but with this flexibility
new challenges arise in assuring highly robust Fabrics. The FCF
does not have the complete control that a Fibre Channel switch
has.
Ethernet bridges commonly provide a feature called Access Control
Lists (ACLs). Properly configured ACLs may emulate a point-to-point
link by providing the traffic enforcement previously discussed.
Furthermore, the FIP protocol has been designed to enable Ethernet
bridges to efficiently monitor FIP frames passing through them. This
data facilitates the automatic configuration of these ACLs. In
addition, the automatic configuration is possible independent of
any other ACLs that may be in use in the network for other
applications. And FIP Snooping is to maintain these ACLs.