Reference Guide

Using FC-FC Routing to Connect Fabrics
∙ FC-FC routing overview............................................................................................................................................................................................ 489
∙ Fibre Channel routing concepts.............................................................................................................................................................................. 491
∙ Setting up FC-FC routing......................................................................................................................................................................................... 503
∙ Backbone fabric IDs.....................................................................................................................................................................................................504
∙ Assigning alias names to fabric IDs.................................................................................................................................................................... 505
∙ FCIP tunnel configuration.........................................................................................................................................................................................506
∙ Inter-fabric link configuration..................................................................................................................................................................................506
∙ FC router port cost configuration.............................................................................................................................................................................511
∙ Shortest IFL cost configuration............................................................................................................................................................................... 513
∙ EX_Port frame trunking configuration.................................................................................................................................................................518
∙ LSAN zone configuration............................................................................................................................................................................................519
∙ Location embedded LSAN zones........................................................................................................................................................................532
∙ Peer LSAN zone support..........................................................................................................................................................................................536
∙ Proxy PID configuration.............................................................................................................................................................................................536
∙ Fabric parameter considerations........................................................................................................................................................................... 537
∙ Inter-fabric broadcast frames..................................................................................................................................................................................537
∙ Resource monitoring................................................................................................................................................................................................... 538
∙ FC-FC routing and Virtual Fabrics.......................................................................................................................................................................539
∙ Upgrade and downgrade considerations for FC-FC routing................................................................................................................542
∙ Displaying the range of output ports connected to xlate domains....................................................................................................543
FC-FC routing overview
The FC-FC routing service provides Fibre Channel routing between two or more fabrics without merging those fabrics.
For example, using FC-FC routing, you can share tape drives across multiple fabrics without the administrative problems, such as
change management, network management, scalability, reliability, availability, and serviceability, that might result from merging the
fabrics.
Be aware that there are different routing terminologies in use:
∙
FC routing is only in a single fabric (Layer 2 routing). This type of routing is discussed in Routing Traffic on page 107.
∙ FC-FC routing is routing between two fabrics (Layer 3 routing) and is discussed in this chapter.
FC-FC routing supports connectivity between the following types of fabrics:
∙ Fabric OS and Fabric OS
∙ Fabric OS and Brocade Network OS
A Fibre Channel router (FC router) is a switch running the FC-FC routing service. The FC-FC routing service can be simultaneously used
as an FC router and as a SAN extension over wide area networks (WANs) using FCIP.
You can set up QoS traffic prioritization over FC routers. Refer to QoS on page 388 for information about QoS and instructions for
setting traffic prioritization over an FC router.
License requirements for FC-FC routing
A software license might be required for FC-FC routing, depending on the types of fabrics that are connected.
The Integrated Routing license is required for FC-FC routing between Fabric OS fabrics.
Brocade Fabric OS Administration Guide, 8.0.1
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