Fabric OS Encryption Administrator's Guide

186 Fabric OS Encryption Administrator’s Guide

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Deployment with FCIP extension switches

Encryption switches may be deployed in configurations that use extension switches or extension

blades within a DCX, DCX-4S or 48000 chassis to enable long distance connections. Figure 105

shows an encryption switch deployment in a Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP) configuration. Refer to the

Fabric OS Administrator’s Guide for information about creating FCIP configurations.

NOTE

We recommend disabling data compression on FCIP links that might carry encrypted traffic to avoid

potential performance issues as compression of encrypted data might not yield the desired

compression ratio. We also recommend that tape pipelining and fastwrite also be disabled on the

FCIP link if it is transporting encrypted traffic.

When an encryption switch is deployed with an extension switch or blade in the same chassis or

fabric, the encryption switch can use the FCIP functionality provided by the extension switch.

In Figure 105, the host is using the remote target for remote data mirroring or backup across the

FCIP link. If the encryption services are enabled for the host and the remote target, the encryption

switch can take clear text from the host and send cipher text over the FCIP link. For FCIP on the

extension switch, this traffic is same as rest of the FCIP traffic between any two FCIP end points.

The traffic is encrypted traffic. FCIP provides a data compression option. Data compression should

not be enabled on the FCIP link. If compression is enabled on FCIP link, then encrypted traffic going

through FCIP compression may not provide the best compression ratio.

FIGURE 105 FCIP deployment