Fibre Channel Routing Concepts; Figure 74 A Metasan With Inter-Fabric Links - HP StoreFabric SN6500B Administrator's Manual

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Fibre Channel routing concepts

Fibre Channel routing concepts
Fibre Channel routing introduces the following concepts:
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Fibre Channel router (FC router)
A switch running the FC-FC routing service. Refer to
page 570 for a list of platforms that can be FC routers.
EX_Port and VEX_Port
An EX_Port and VEX_Port function similarly to an E_Port and VE_Port respectively, but
terminate at the switch and do not propagate fabric services or routing topology information
from one edge fabric to another. Refer to the Fibre Channel over IP Administrator's Guide for
details about VE_Ports.
Edge fabric
An edge fabric is a Fibre Channel fabric with targets and initiators connected through the
supported platforms by using an EX_Port or VEX_Port.
Backbone fabric
A backbone fabric is an intermediate network that connects one or more edge fabrics.
In a SAN, the backbone fabric consists of at least one FC router and possibly a number of
Fabric OS-based Fibre Channel switches (refer to
Inter-fabric link (IFL)
The link between an E_Port and EX_Port, or VE_Port and VEX_Port, is called an inter-fabric link
(IFL). You can configure multiple IFLs from an FC router to an edge fabric.
Figure 74 shows a metaSAN consisting of three edge fabrics connected through a Brocade DCX
with inter-fabric links.
Host
Edge
fabric 1
E_Port
Fibre
IFL
Channel
switch
FIGURE 74
A metaSAN with inter-fabric links
"Supported platforms for FC-FC routing"
Figure 76
Target
Edge
fabric 2
E_Port
IFL
EX_Ports
FC router
on page 575).
Target
Edge
fabric 3
E_Port
Fibre
Long distance IFL
Channel
switch
Fabric OS Administrator's Guide
53-1002745-02
on