Fabric OS Administrator's Guide v7.0.0 (53-1002148-02, June 2011)

Fabric OS Administrator’s Guide 463
53-1002148-02
Fibre Channel routing concepts
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NOTE
In configurations with two backbones connected to the same edge fabric, routing is not supported
between edge fabrics that are not directly attached to the same backbone. Routing over multiple
backbones is a multi-hop topology and is not allowed.
Fibre Channel routing concepts
Fibre Channel routing introduces the following concepts:
• Fibre Channel router (FC router)
A switch running the FC-FC routing service. See “Supported platforms for Fibre Channel
routing” on page 462 for a list of platforms that can be FC routers.
• EX_Port, VEX_Port
An EX_Port and VEX_Port function similarly to an E_Port and VE_Port respectively, but
terminate at the switch and do not propagate fabric services or routing topology information
from one edge fabric to another. See the Fibre Channel over IP Administrator’s Guide for
details about VE_Ports.
• Edge fabric
An edge fabric is a Fibre Channel fabric with targets and initiators connected through the
supported platforms by using an EX_Port or VEX_Port.
• Backbone fabric
A backbone fabric is an intermediate network that connects one or more edge fabrics. In a
SAN, the backbone fabric consists of at least one FC router and possibly a number of
Fabric OS-based Fibre Channel switches (see Figure 76 on page 466).
• Inter-fabric link (IFL)
The link between an E_Port and EX_Port, or VE_Port and VEX_Port, is called an inter-fabric link
(IFL). You can configure multiple IFLs from an FC router to an edge fabric.
Figure 74 shows a metaSAN consisting of three edge fabrics connected through a Brocade DCX
with inter-fabric links.