.SAN design reference guide Vol. 1-5 785350-001
H-series switch settings
The H-series switches have a fixed BB-credit setting. When using supported long-wave SFP, the
following distances are supported:
• 3.3 km at 8 Gb/s
• 6.6 km at 4 Gb/s
• 10 km at 2 Gb/s
However, you can use EFMS to allocate more buffer credits to ports of an H-series switch to achieve
increased distance up to the limit of the SFP capability, allowing 10 km at 8 Gb/s, 4Gb/s, or 2
Gb/s to be supported.
Multi-protocol long-distance technology
This section describes the following storage replication technologies, which enable data transfer
between SAN networks:
• “Fibre Channel over Internet Protocol” (page 266)
• “Fibre Channel over SONET” (page 270)
• “Fibre Channel over ATM” (page 272)
Fibre Channel over Internet Protocol
FCIP connects Fibre Channel fabrics over IP-based networks to form a unified SAN in a single
fabric. FCIP relies on IP-based network services to provide connectivity between fabrics over LANs,
MANs, or WANs.
This section describes the following topics:
• “FCIP mechanisms” (page 266)
• “FCIP link configurations” (page 266)
• “FCIP network considerations” (page 267)
• “FCIP bandwidth considerations” (page 268)
• “FCIP gateways” (page 269)
• “Third-party QoS and data encryption FCIP products” (page 270)
FCIP mechanisms
FCIP gateways encapsulate Fibre Channel frames into IP packets and transmit them through a
tunnel in an existing IP network infrastructure. The IP tunnel is a dedicated link that transmits the
Fibre Channel data stream over the IP network. On the receiving end, the FCIP gateway extracts
the original Fibre Channel frames from the received IP packets and then retransmits them to the
destination Fibre Channel node. The gateways also handle IP-level error recovery.
NOTE: You must use the same gateway model (or model family in the case of MPX200 to mpx110)
at both ends to ensure interoperability.
To connect to FCIP gateways, B-series switches connect through an E_Port, while C-series switches
use plug-in modules. Figure 90 (page 267), Figure 91 (page 267), and Figure 92 (page 267) show
IP link configurations.
FCIP link configurations
Using FCIP, you can configure the SAN ISL through a single link, dual links, or shared links.
FCIP single-link configuration
The simplest FCIP configuration comprises one link (Figure 90).
266 SAN extension