Re: [PATCH 01/10] staging: fnic2 add initialization

[Oliver Smith-Denny <osmithde@cisco.com>]

On Mon, Apr 09, 2018 at 04:57:16PM -0400, Martin K. Petersen wrote:
>
> My initial questions are: Why is a new driver necessary? Why can't the
> existing fnic driver be extended? And if it can't, what can be shared
> between the two drivers?
> 
> A good place to have that discussion would be on linux-scsi...

Hi Martin,

Thanks for taking some time to discuss fnic2. linux-scsi is CC'ed to this
thread, for their input.

The main focus of the fnic2 driver is FCoE target mode support, NVMe over FC
initiator & target drivers, and Multi-queue support. We think these changes
need a new framework that we have developed in fnic2.

However, we do believe that a significant number of files and interfaces can
be shared between the two drivers. Specifically, all interaction with the
Cisco VNIC hardware can be shared. Also, there are some driver-specific
queueing interfaces that can be shared between the drivers. This will allow us
to share a significant number of files between fnic and fnic2. We are currently
looking at how the common files can be shared, which was one of our TODOs for
when we were looking at including this driver in the staging area.

Thanks,
Oliver Smith-Denny