Fibre Channel Routing; Fibre Channel Routing Overview - HP StorageWorks 4000/6000/8000 - Enterprise Virtual Arrays Reference Manual

3 Fibre Channel routing

This chapter describes Fibre Channel routing in an HP SAN environment. It describes the following
topics:
Fibre Channel routing
SAN scaling and
Fibre Channel routing
Fabric redundancy and
Supported routing

Fibre Channel routing overview

Fibre Channel routing facilitates the development and management of higher-capacity SANs,
significantly increasing device connectivity. By enabling communication between two or more physically
independent fabrics, multiple logical fabrics, or VSANs, routing provides high levels of SAN scalability.
Each fabric, logical fabric, or VSAN maintains a unique fabric services configuration.
NOTE:
In the context of Fibre Channel routing, the terms "fabric," "Virtual Fabric," and "VSAN" are used
interchangeably. HP does not support using the B-series Fibre Channel routing, 1606 Extension SAN
Switches or DC Dir Switch MP Extension Blades, Multi-protocol Routers, or B-series Virtual Fabrics-IFR
with C-series IVR functionality in the same SAN configuration.
HP only supports routing devices connected to H-series switches through TR_Ports to devices in B-series
and C-series fabrics.
Routing enables independent fabrics, Virtual Fabrics with IFR, or VSANs with IVR to dynamically share
devices without the need to reconfigure or re-cable physical connections.
Routed fabrics, Virtual Fabrics with IFR, or VSANs with IVR can consolidate management interfaces.
Instead of one management interface per fabric, there can be one per SAN, or two per SAN, if
redundant fabrics are used.
Routing using the TR feature of the H-series switches does not provide consolidated management of
the routed fabric.
Fibre Channel routing features include:
Increased SAN scalability
Interconnecting (not merging) multiple physical fabrics, Virtual Fabrics, or VSANs
Overcoming individual fabric scaling limits
Improved device access and sharing
Sharing devices dynamically across multiple fabrics, Virtual Fabrics, or VSANs
Increasing device utilization
Fabric, Virtual Fabric, or VSAN independence
overview, page 61
routing, page 63
implementations, page 64
routing, page 69
configurations, page 71
SAN Design Reference Guide 61