RE: iFCP

[Joshua Tseng <jtseng@NishanSystems.com>]

Hi Vi,

Lest there be any confusion about iFCP and mFCP, I would
like to clarify that in these protocols, all next-hop 
forwarding decisions between switching nodes are made on the
basis of the destination IP address, NOT the D_ID as
in Fibre Channel switches.  While an iFCP implementation
MAY have Fibre Channel elements, these are statelessly
mapped to IP.  But once again, all routing and forwarding
decisions are made by the switch looking at the destination
IP address.  This means you need an IP switch, not a
Fibre Channel switch, to route and forward iFCP through
a network.

Josh

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vi Chau [mailto:vchau@gadzoox.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2000 4:35 PM
> To: 'mark.carlson@sun.com'; KRUEGER,MARJORIE (HP-Roseville,ex1)
> Cc: 'John Hufferd'; ips@ece.cmu.edu
> Subject: RE: iFCP
> 
> 
> If you have an iFCP gateway that connects multiple
> FC nodes to the IP network, and if you want these
> FC nodes to talk to one another, you need an FC
> switch inside the gateway. An FCoverIP device
> works in exactly the same way; but it is not
> limited to shipping FCP frames around. It can do
> FC-VI, for instance, in addition to FCP. SANs (and
> more) can be had with FCoverIP.
> 
> 
> Vi Chau
> Gadzoox Networks, Inc.
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Mark A. Carlson [mailto:mark.carlson@sun.com]
> > Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2000 3:16 PM
> > To: KRUEGER,MARJORIE (HP-Roseville,ex1)
> > Cc: 'John Hufferd'; ips@ece.cmu.edu
> > Subject: Re: iFCP
> > 
> > 
> > IMHO, the most interesting thing about this proposal is that
> > "SAN"s can be had without a single FC switch anywhere. This
> > is quite different from bridging FC switch based SANs over
> > IP.
> > 
> > All the n*n stuff can happen in IP based switches without 
> > changing hosts or devices (in theory ;-). The "edge connects"
> > do the conversion for hosts and devices.
> > 
> > -- mark
> > 
>  
>