HP StorageWorks XPath OS 7.4.X Administrator Guide (AA-RVHDD-TE, February 2006)

XPath OS 7.4.x administrator guide 45
4 Using the FC-FC Routing Service
The FC-FC Routing Service is an optional, fee-based license that provides Fibre Channel routing between
two or more fabrics without merging those fabrics.
The MP Router can be used simultaneously as a Fibre Channel router and as an FCIP tunnel.
This contains the following sections:
• About Fibre Channel routing, next
• Configuring an interfabric link, page 52
• XPath OS and Secure Fabric OS, page 54
• Setting a proxy PID, page 57
• Monitoring resources, page 58
• Routing ECHO, page 58
• Connecting to McDATA SANs, page 59
• Configuring the fabrics for interconnectivity, page 61
• LSAN zoning, page 67
About Fibre Channel routing
FC-FC routing introduces the following concepts (see Figure 3, Figure 4 on page 46, and Figure 5 on
page 47):
• You can create logical storage area networks (LSANs) that can span fabrics. These LSANs allow Fibre
Channel zones to cross physical SAN boundaries without merging the fabrics and while maintaining
the access controls of zones. (See Figure 3.)
• A special type of port, called an EX_Port, functions somewhat like an E_Port but terminates at the router
and does not propagate fabric services or routing topology information from one edge fabric to
another. The link between an E_Port and an EX_Port is called an interfabric link (IFL). You can configure
multiple IFLs from one MP Router, from additional MP Routers, or from both. (See Figure 4 on page 46.)
• One property of every EX_Port is its fabric ID (FID). Multiple EX_Ports attached to the same fabric have
the same FID. EX_Ports attached to different fabrics have different FIDs.
• A standard Fibre Channel SAN with Fibre Channel targets and initiators connected through an MP
Router to another Fibre Channel SAN is called an edge SAN.
• The edge SAN fabric is called an edge fabric.
• MP Routers can also connect edge fabrics using a backbone fabric—similar to a TCP/IP backbone
network. A backbone fabric consists of at least one MP Router, and possibly a number of Fabric
OS-based Fibre Channel switches. It provides transport but is otherwise transparent to the hosts, targets,
and LSANs. A fabric cannot be both a backbone fabric and an edge fabric. (See Figure 5 on
page 47.)
• The term meta-SAN is used for the collection of all SANs interconnected with Fibre Channel routers.
Simple meta-SANs can be constructed using a single MP Router. Additional MP Routers and router
ports can be used to increase the available bandwidth between fabrics and for redundancy.
Figure 3 shows a simple meta-SAN consisting of one MP Router connecting hosts in Edge Fabric 1 and
Edge Fabric 3 with storage in Edge Fabric 2 through the use of LSANs.