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[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index] Re: Request to exclude FC over IP from storage over IP working group charterI think that Somesh stated this very well and I agree the FC over IP is an important problem but a completely different problem. . . . John L. Hufferd Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM) IBM/SSD San Jose Ca (408) 256-0403, Tie: 276-0403 Internet address: hufferd@us.ibm.com Notes address: John Hufferd/San Jose/IBM @ IBMUS VM address: hufferd at IBMUSM54 somesh_gupta@hp.com@ece.cmu.edu on 08/10/2000 03:54:37 PM Sent by: owner-ips@ece.cmu.edu To: ips@ece.cmu.edu, mankin@east.isi.edu, sob@harvard.edu cc: Subject: Request to exclude FC over IP from storage over IP working group charter Scott/Allsion, I would urge you to not include FC over IP in the charter of the SCSI over IP working group. Using (TCP)/IP to transport SCSI command blocks fits very naturally as part of the SCSI Architecture Model which allows for the use of different transports to transfer SCSI commands. This include the parallel SCSI, fibre-channel (FCP), SCI, and many others including a generic packet transport mechanism. In this case (TCP)/IP acts as a mechanism to transport an application level protocol as is intended - preserving the protocol layering principles and allowing for an architecturally clean solution. I have been impressed with the momentum behind this idea and saw a number of participants at the ietf who were there for this session (including myself). This specification will really drive the convergence to IP based networks. There is significant technical and commercial push for this idea. FC over IP is a proposal (at least based on the presentation at the ietf meeting in Pittsburg) to have IP act as a tunnel between two FC islands i.e. there is a fully functional fibre-channel island A and a fully functional fibre-channel island B, and the proposal is to connect them together using an IP based network (don't know if it is to make a super island or connect them as a "router" would connect two sub-nets). I think that the problems being solved and the motivations (from a technical perspective - not just a commercial perspective) are significantly different. 1. This is putting a transport over another transport using tunneling protocols. A lot of the issues will be about making one work while satisfying the contraints and using the capabilities of the other. Probably combines the timing and recovery mechanisms of the two transports in some horrible way. 2. The naming issues are entirely different. In storage over IP, each of the partcipating entities is an IP entity. In FC over IP, the participating entities are actually FC entities and will have some mechanism of figuring out that the other FC entity lives across a tunnel avaliable on the local network. If the proposal is to create a larger net, then again the FC port addresses will have to partitioned in some interesting way. 3. How would arbitrated loop work in such an environment of creating a large net, or will it connect only Fabric ports together. 4. Security issues are again completely different as the end nodes are really not IP entities. 5. The protocol encapsulation is also completely different. In Summary, putting scsi over ip is architecturally very clean and accomodated by the SAM architecture as well as networking layered architecture. The end systems communicating in this case are using TCP/IP to transfer application (SCSI) PDUs and the problems/solutions have a very good framework to work with. FC tunnels through IP is a commerically important problem to solve but is a completely different problem. I would like to keep both of them seperate so that each of them can be successful and provide useful specifications. Regards, Somesh Gupta Project Manager/Architect Storage over IP (for HP-UX servers) Hewlett-Packard
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