Fcip Concepts; Ip Wan Network Considerations - Brocade Communications Systems 8 Administrator's Manual

FCIP concepts

Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP) enables you to use existing IP wide area network (WAN) infrastructure
to connect Fibre Channel SANs. FCIP supports applications such as remote data replication (RDR),
centralized SAN backup, and data migration over very long distances that are impractical or very
costly using native Fibre Channel connections. FCIP tunnels are used to pass Fibre Channel I/O
through an IP network. FCIP tunnels are built on a physical connection between two peer switches
or blades. Fibre Channel frames enter FCIP through virtual E_ports (VE_ports or VEX_ports) and are
encapsulated and passed to TCP layer connections. The TCP connections insure in-order delivery of
FC frames and lossless transmission. The Fibre Channel fabric and all Fibre Channel targets and
initiators are unaware of the presence of the IP network.
TCP/IP layers, and the general concept of FCIP tunneling.
FIGURE 1

IP WAN network considerations

Because FCIP uses TCP connections over an existing wide area network, consult with the WAN
carrier and IP network administrator to be sure that the network hardware and software equipment
operating in the data path can properly support the TCP connections. When consulting, keep the
following in mind:
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Fabric OS FCIP Administrator's Guide
53-1001766-01
FCIP tunnel concept and TCP/IP layers
Routers and firewalls that are in the data path must be configured to pass FCIP traffic (TCP
port 3225) and IPSec traffic, if IPsec is used (UDP port 500). TCP port 3226 must be
configured for the 7500/FR4-18i only.
To enable recovery from a WAN failure or outage, be sure that diverse, redundant network
paths are available across the WAN.
Be sure the underlying WAN infrastructure is capable of supporting the redundancy and
performance expected in your implementation.
FCIP concepts
Figure 1 shows the relationship of FC and
TCP
IP
LINK
PHY
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3