Chapter 1. SAN routing 5
The architecture of FCIP is outlined in the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF) Request for Comment (RFC) 3821, “Fibre Channel Over TCP/IP (FCIP),”
available on the Web at:
http://ietf.org/rfc/rfc3821.txt
Merging fabrics
Because FCIP simply tunnels Fibre Channel, creating an FCIP link is like
creating an inter-switch link (ISL), and the two fabrics at either end are merged
into a single fabric. This creates issues in situations where you do not want to
merge the two fabrics for business reasons, or where the link connection is prone
to occasional fluctuations.
Many corporate IP links are robust, but it can be difficult to be sure because
traditional IP-based applications tend to be retry-tolerant. Fibre Channel f ...