Brocade Fabric Manager Administrator's Guide (53-10000196-01-HP, November 2006)

Fabric Manager Administrator’s Guide 20-1

Publication Number: 53-1000196-01-HP

Chapter

Using the FCIP Tunneling Service

This chapter describes the Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP) Tunneling Service. It contains the following

topics:

• “About FCIP Tunneling” on page 20-1

• “Viewing FCIP Information” on page 20-2

• “Configuring an FCIP Tunnel” on page 20-3

About FCIP Tunneling

The optional FCIP Tunneling Service enables you to use “tunnels” to connect Fibre Channel SANs over

IP-based networks. An FCIP tunnel transports data between a pair of Fibre Channel switches, and can

have more than one TCP connection between the pair of IP nodes. However, from the Fibre Channel

fabric point of view, the FCIP tunnel is just a connection between switches while the IP network and

protocols remain invisible.

Fabric OS supports FCIP tunnels between any of the following SilkWorm switches:

• SilkWorm 7500

• SilkWorm 48000 with an FR4-18i blade

• SilkWorm Multiprotocol Router Model AP7420

GbE ports configured for FCIP are called virtual E_Ports (VE_Ports) or virtual EX_Ports (VEX_Ports).

An FCIP tunnel between two VE_Ports is an FCIP interswitch link (FCIP ISL), and merges the two

fabrics. An FCIP tunnel between a VE_Port and a VEX_Port is an FCIP interfabric link (FCIP IFL) and

does not merge the fabrics. FCIP tunnels between two VEX_Ports are not supported.

Fibre Channel frame encapsulation on one VE_Port and the reconstruction of Fibre Channel frames on

the other VE_Port is transparent to the initiator and target.

GbE ports support FCIP with link speeds up to 1-Gbit/sec. Each GbE port supports up to eight FCIP

tunnels.

See the Fabric OS Administrator’s Guide for additional information about FCIP.

Figure 20-1 on page 20-2 illustrates a portion of a Fibre Channel network using FCIP. The FCIP

interswitch link (VE_Ports connected through the IP network) joins two SANs (Data Center FC and

Office FC) into parts of a larger SAN.

Note

You must have an FCIP license installed on the switch to use the FCIP Tunneling Service.