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

Fabric OS Administrator’s Guide 465

53-1002148-02

Fibre Channel routing concepts

FIGURE 75 A metaSAN with edge-to-edge and backbone fabrics and LSAN zones

• Proxy device

A proxy device is a virtual device imported into a fabric by a Fibre Channel router, and

represents a real device on another fabric. It has a name server entry and is assigned a valid

port ID. When a proxy device is created in a fabric, the real Fibre Channel device is considered

to be imported into this fabric. The presence of a proxy device is required for inter-fabric device

communication. See “Proxy devices” on page 467 for additional information about proxy

devices.

• Proxy PID

A proxy PID is the port ID (PID) of the proxy device. The proxy device appears to the fabric as a

real Fibre Channel device, has a name server entry, and is assigned a valid port ID. The port ID

is relevant only on the fabric in which the proxy device has been created.

• Fabric ID (FID)

Every EX_Port and VEX_Port uses the fabric ID (FID) to identify the fabric at the opposite end of

the inter-fabric link. The FID for every edge fabric must be unique from the perspective of each

backbone fabric.

- If multiple EX_Ports (or multiple VEX_Ports) are attached to the same edge fabric, they

must be configured with the same FID.

- If EX_Ports and VEX_Ports are attached to different edge fabrics, they must be configured

with a unique FID for each edge fabric.

Edge fabric 1

Backbone fabric

Edge fabric 3

Edge fabric 2

IP cloud

= LSAN

FC router

VEX_Port

VE_Port

EX_Port (2)

E_Port

IFL

IFL IFL