HP Cisco MDS 9120 Cisco MDS 9000 Family Fabric Manager Configuration Guide, Re - Page 941

Chapter 48 Configuring FCIP About FCIP Send documentation comments to [email protected] Figure 48-2 FCIP Links and Virtual ISLs FCIP Links Switch A F FC FC F E IP FC Switch B VE GE FCIP link FC E F FC Virtual ISL See the "Configuring E Ports" section on page 48-28. Switch C F FC GE VE F FC 91557 FCIP links consist of one or more TCP connections between two FCIP link endpoints. Each link carries encapsulated Fibre Channel frames. When the FCIP link comes up, the VE ports at both ends of the FCIP link create a virtual Fibre Channel (E)ISL and initiate the E port protocol to bring up the (E)ISL. By default, the FCIP feature on any Cisco MDS 9000 Family switch creates two TCP connections for each FCIP link: • One connection is used for data frames. • The other connection is used only for Fibre Channel control frames, that is, switch-to-switch protocol frames (all Class F). This arrangement provides low latency for all control frames. To enable FCIP on the IPS module or MPS-14/2 module, an FCIP profile and FCIP interface (interface FCIP) must be configured. The FCIP link is established between two peers, the VE port initialization behavior is identical to a normal E port. This behavior is independent of the link being FCIP or pure Fibre Channel, and is based on the E port discovery process (ELP, ESC). Once the FCIP link is established, the VE port behavior is identical to E port behavior for all inter-switch communication (including domain management, zones, and VSANs). At the Fibre Channel layer, all VE and E port operations are identical. OL-16184-01, Cisco MDS SAN-OS Release 3.x Cisco MDS 9000 Family CLI Configuration Guide 48-3