RE: iFCP - FCIP merge proposal

["Venkat Rangan" <venkat@rhapsodynetworks.com>]

Josh,

I can see iFCP draft document changed to support for NL_Ports, but I fail to
see a trivial mapping to include E_Port or B_Port functionality. Certainly
an ISL with one end connected to a pure FC switche's E_Port and the other
end connected to an N_Port on a device with iFCP Portal would not work. Are
you suggesting that the device with iFCP portal would also provide an E_Port
connectivity? If so, who selects Principal Switch? Are you also prepared to
encapsulate Class F Frames in IP and send it to another switch during the
Principal Switch selection phase of initialization?

If we simply let these as "implementation details", I am not sure how one
can ensure interoperable collection of switches that support a combined FC
and IP network. Is it not a requirement to support these environments? The
FCIP proposal, by relying on FC-SW-2 concepts for the SAN islands, and
providing FC-BB for IP connectivity between SAN islands along with FC
encapsulation over IP, provides this capability fairly seamlessly without a
whole new architecture.

Regards,

Venkat Rangan
Rhapsody Networks Inc.
http://www.rhapsodynetworks.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Joshua Tseng [mailto:jtseng@NishanSystems.com]
Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2000 8:55 AM
To: Venkat Rangan; Julian_Satran@il.ibm.com; ips@ece.cmu.edu
Subject: RE: iFCP - FCIP merge proposal


Venkat,

<stuff deleted...>
>
> But as far as I can tell, iFCP requires you to remove devices
> that support
> E_Port, B_Port and FC-AL functionality and replace them with iFCP plus
> OSPF/BGP/RIP implementaions, which is quite a drastic step
> for a deployed
> SAN to take on. Merging the two would appear to provide both
> capabilities.
>
iFCP does not require you to remove anything.  There are implementation
techniques to connect E_PORTS, Loop ports, and whatever ports you have
in FC to the iFCP transport.  Merging the two will provide you nothing
but a very complicated, confusing document describing two dissimilar
techniques.

Regards,

Josh

> Regards,
>
> Venkat Rangan
> Rhapsody Networks Inc.
> http://www.rhapsodynetworks.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ips@ece.cmu.edu [mailto:owner-ips@ece.cmu.edu]On Behalf Of
> Julian Satran
> Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2000 4:36 PM
> To: ips@ece.cmu.edu
> Subject: iFCP - FCIP merge proposal
>
>
> Dear colleagues,
>
> At yesterdays IPS WG meeting and had no chance to clarify my proposal
> regarding a merger of FCIP and iFCP into a single effort.
>
> iFCP attempt to provide an IP interconnect for FCP devices.
> It has also the
> capabilty to interconnect FC islands.
>
> FCIP has the narrower scope of connecting only FC islands -
> admittedly even
> FC devices other then FCP.
>
> Given that FCP devices where the main concern of this WG and that iFCP
> serves a wider purpose than FCIP and will enable not only
> tunneling but also
> migration of FCP devices to IP infrastructure my intention
> was to suggest
> that iFCP should attempt to incorporate those FCIP functions
> it does not
> care about today and those two groups should work towards one
> common draft
> that should cover not only tunneling but also device migration to IP
> networks.
>
> Julo
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