Virtual Ports And Fcip Tunnels; Virtual Port Types - Brocade Communications Systems 8 Administrator's Manual

3
FCIP Design Considerations for the 7500 switch and FR4-18i blade

Virtual ports and FCIP tunnels

Each Brocade 7500 Extension Switch with an upgraded license and FR4-18i blade presents 16 FC
ports and 16 virtual ports. The Brocade 7500E Extension Switch presents only 2 active FC ports
and 1 virtual port per GE interface. Each GbE interface can support up to 8 FCIP tunnels which
are represented as 8 virtual ports on ge0 and 8 virtual ports on ge1. The mapping of tunnels on
ge0 and ge1 to virtual port numbers is represented in
TABLE 7
GbE port
ge0
ge1

Virtual Port Types

Virtual ports may be defined as VE_Ports or VEX_Ports:
•
•
Figure 15
are VE_Ports connected over the IP WAN network, to join the office and data center SANs into a
single larger SAN.
42
Tunnel and virtual port numbering
Tunnels
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
VE_Ports (virtual E_Ports) are used to create interswitch links (ISLs) through an FCIP tunnel. If
VE_Ports are used on both ends of an FCIP tunnel, the fabrics connected by the tunnel are
merged.
VEX_Ports enable FC-FC Routing Service functionality over an FCIP tunnel. VEX_Ports enable
interfabric links (IFLs). If a VEX_Port is on one end of an FCIP tunnel, the fabrics connected by
the tunnel are not merged. The other end of the tunnel must be defined as a VE_Port.
VEX_Ports are not used in pairs.
on page 43 illustrates a portion of a Fibre Channel network that uses FCIP ISLs, which
Table 7.
Virtual ports
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
Fabric OS FCIP Administrator's Guide
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