Dell Brocade 6520 Administrator's Guide Supporting Fabric OS 7.1.0 - Page 575

Fibre Channel routing concepts 24 ISL FC router EX_Port FC router EX_Port Backbone fabric IFL IFL E_Port Edge SAN 1 Edge SAN 2 E_Port = LSAN FIGURE 76 Edge SANs connected through a backbone fabric • Phantom domains A phantom domain is a domain emulated by the Fibre Channel router. The FC router can emulate two types of phantom domains: front phantom domains and translate phantom domains. For detailed information about phantom domains, refer to "Phantom domains" on page 577. Proxy devices An FC router achieves inter-fabric device connectivity by creating proxy devices (hosts and targets) in attached fabrics that represent real devices in other fabrics. For example, a host in Fabric 1 can communicate with a target in Fabric 2 as follows: • A proxy target in Fabric 1 represents the real target in Fabric 2. • Likewise, a proxy host in Fabric 2 represents the real host in Fabric 1. The host discovers and sends Fibre Channel frames to the proxy target. The FC router receives these frames, translates them appropriately, and then delivers them to the destination fabric for delivery to the target. The target responds by sending frames to the proxy host. Hosts and targets are exported from the edge SAN to which they are attached and, correspondingly, imported into the edge SAN reached through Fibre Channel routing. Figure 77 illustrates this concept. Fabric OS Administrator's Guide 575 53-1002745-02