NonStop Networking Overview

Figure 8 Conventional TCP/IP: Data From the Interface is Restricted to Applications Using the
Associated Process
In NonStop TCP/IPv6, if you do not configure the environment to use logical-network partitioning
and in CIP if you did not configure the environment to use Providers, applications using those
subsystems cannot determine which interface they will get because the interface is no longer
associated with the TCP/IP process used by the applications.
LNP support in NonStop TCP/IPv6 and Providers in CIP are similar to conventional TCP/IP in the
sense that you can restrict an application’s view of the network by associating the application with
a TCP/IP process. LNP and Providers allow better control over an application's access to the
network, by limiting the network resources available to the application to just those in the LNP or
Provider that the application has been configured to use.
In NonStop TCP/IPv6, each LNP has its own set of IP addresses and SLSA logical interfaces (LIFs).
In CIP, each Provider has its own set of IP addresses and Ethernet interfaces. An IP address used
on one Provider or in one LNP cannot be used on a different Provider or different LNP, and an
interface cannot be shared between Providers or LNPs. Applications on one Provider or LNP are
isolated from applications on different Providers or LNPs on the same system in the same way they
would be isolated if using different conventional TCP/IP processes. Communication between such
applications is only possible through the attached local area networks. CIP and NonStop TCP/IPv6
do not forward packets between Providers or LNPs internally.
The difference between conventional TCP/IP and NonStop TCP/IPv6 with LNP or CIP with Providers
is that the NonStop TCP/IPv6 transport process (TCP6SAM process) and the CIP transport process
(CIPSAM), unlike the NonStop TCP/IP process, span all the processors in the whole system. The
result is that an application in any processor, even when using LNP or Providers to restrict itself to
specific interfaces, has direct access (with no interprocess, message-system hop) to the network
adapter.
For more information about LNP, see the TCP/IPv6 Configuration and Management Manual. For
more information about Providers, see the Cluster I/O Protocols (CIP) Configuration and
Management Manual.
Most of the aspects of logical network partitioning that apply to NonStop TCP/IPv6 also apply to
CIP with these differences:
• Network partitions are called Providers in CIP.
• In NonStop TCP/IPv6 you can assign individual interfaces to a partition whereas CIP, by
default, assigns whole CLIMs, each of which is a group of five interfaces to a Provider. CIP
allows individual interfaces to be assigned to a provider with the introduction of the MULTIPROV
feature in J06.14 and H06.25.
20 Networking on Integrity NonStop Systems