Fabric, Virtual Fabric, And Vsan Independence; Fabric Services; World Wide Name; Import And Export - HP StorageWorks 4000/6000/8000 - Enterprise Virtual Arrays Reference Manual

Isolation of fault domains
Separate fabric services
Centralized SAN fabric management
Common fabric management
Tape backup consolidation

Fabric, Virtual Fabric, and VSAN independence

Fibre Channel routing identifies data frames in a fabric, Virtual Fabric, or VSAN for transfer to other
fabrics, Virtual Fabrics with IFR, or VSANs with IVR. Only data addressed to a device in another
fabric, Virtual Fabric, or VSAN passes through the router or routing function; therefore, a disruption
of fabric services in one routed fabric, Virtual Fabric, or VSAN is unlikely to propagate to another.

Fabric services

Fabric services coordinate communication between switches in a fabric, Virtual Fabric, or VSAN.
The fabric services manage:
Device names and addresses
Timestamps
Switch utilities
Routing connects devices in multiple fabrics, Virtual Fabrics, or VSANs without extending fabric
services from one routed fabric to another. Devices in a routed network can communicate across
LSANs, Virtual Fabrics, or VSANs despite having different fabric services configurations.

World Wide Name

A recognized naming authority assigns each Fibre Channel device a unique identifier, called the
WWN. Use the device WWNs to:
Assign devices to zones.
Define devices to export from one fabric, Virtual Fabric, or VSAN to another.

Import and export

Routing creates a Meta SAN, extended Virtual Fabric, or extended VSAN when it connects fabrics,
Virtual Fabrics, or VSANs. Routing exports devices from one fabric, Virtual Fabric, or VSAN to another.
An exported device has an imported address in every destination fabric, Virtual Fabric, or VSAN to
which it has been exported. The address of the exported device in the source fabric, Virtual Fabric,
or VSAN is its exported address.
An imported device is a device as seen in a fabric when using its imported address. An exported
device is a device as seen in the fabric when using its exported address.

Routing table

The routing function reads the fabric address information in each frame that it receives, and then uses
a routing table to determine the destination fabric, destination Virtual Fabric, or destination VSAN
and the address within that fabric, Virtual Fabric, or VSAN. The routing function then transmits the
frame to the address in the destination fabric.
62 Fibre Channel routing