HP StorageWorks Multi-protocol Router XPath OS 7.4.1d Release Notes (AV-RW5LM-TE, March 2007)

Issue
Description
Multiple FCIP Links
not suppor ted with
Continuous Access EVA
or HSG80 DRM
Support for multiple FCIP Links between locations was added in XPath 7.0.3b.
This feature is supported with Continuous Access XP only.
FCIP with Continuous
Access XP
All Continuou
sAccessXPconfigurationsusingtheMPRouterrequireaminimum
of 45 Mbps IP bandwidth.
FCIP and firewalls The Multi-protocol Router uses XPP as the transport layer for FCIP transmission.
When a firewall is in the path of the FCIP tunnel, the firewall must be configured
to allow protocol type 206 in the IP header. The purpose of this protocol type is to
establish a connection and enable the FCIP traffic that traverses the firewall.
FCIP link
The FCIP selective acknowledgement feature was added in a previous version
of firmware .
This feature improves F C IP performance in conditions with high latency and
packet loss.
To ensure this feature is available, verify that MP Routers on both sides of the
link are using 7.4.0 version firmware.
If one side of the link is running firmware that does not support this feature, the
link will not be established and switchShow will display incompatible
firmware for that VE_PORT.
Wide area network
services and FCIP
Available Bandwidth Parameter.
Previous releases of FCIP demonstrated performance degradation and intermittent
ISL failu
re if the IP network’s available bandwidth for the ISL was restricted to less
than 400 M
bps.
This rele
ase includes a new parameter for the portCfgFcip CLI command.
The param
eter is -b i where i is the available ISL bandwidth in Mbps, rounded
down to t
he closest integer value.
Due to the various link-encapsulation methods, header sizes, and so forth, it might
be diffi
cult to determine the exact available bandwidth for a particular link. HP
recomm
ends setting the bandwidth parameter to 96% of the advertised li nk
bandwidth (for example, -b 96 for a 100 Mbps link).
Additional tuning of the bandwidth parameter might be necessary for optimal
throughput.
Jumbo F
rame Support. Previous releases of FCIP segmented FCIP-encapsulated
FC frames into two Ethernet frames if the encapsulated FC frame would exceed
standard E thernet maximum frame size. To improve ISL throughput and bandwidth
effi
ciency for an FCIP ISL capable of supporting jumbo Ethernet frames, this
rele
ase includes a new portCfgFcip CLI command. The parameter is -j n.
The n
is set to 1 to enable jumbo frame transmission and 2 to disable jumbo
fram
e transmission. This option is disabled by default.
NOTE:
The system does not attempt to verify that the link can support jumbo fr ames
(there is no path MTU discovery). If configured to enable jumbo frame
support on a network that does not support jumbo Ethernet frames end-to-end,
the
link will fail if a 2KB FC frame is sent across the FCIP ISL.
Multi-protocol Router XPath OS 7.4.1d
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