RE: Fibre Channel-to-Ethernet Routers?

[Carl Hirsch <Carl.Hirsch@computershare.com>]

Alrighty then - thanks. While doing a web search regarding FC over IP I came
across a thread from this group that seemed germane to the topic. 

As far as misunderstanding the FAQs - here's an excerpt from a FAW on
FibreChannel.com (http://www.fibrechannel.com/FAQs/fcfaq5.html) -
Q. I have Ethernet. Can I bridge/route between the 2 protocols? 
You can bridge Ethernet to Fibre Channel with a Fibre Channel to Ethernet
router.
This is the statement that led to my apparent misunderstanding.

Sorry to waste your bandwidth and time. I don't suppose you'd be able to
point me towards a more appropriate listserv or Usenet group?


-carl hirsch

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Black_David@emc.com [SMTP:Black_David@emc.com]
> Sent:	Wednesday, November 22, 2000 4:06 PM
> To:	Carl.Hirsch@computershare.com; ips@ece.cmu.edu
> Subject:	RE: Fibre Channel-to-Ethernet Routers?
> 
> Questions about available and planned products are generally not
> appropriate for this list.  This is an IETF working group engaged
> in development of protocol standards and related documents.
> Beyond that I suspect that you've misunderstood the FAQs that
> you've read on Fibre Channel, and this list is not an
> appropriate forum for a tutorial on that topic.
> 
> --David (WG co-chair) 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From:	Carl Hirsch [SMTP:Carl.Hirsch@computershare.com]
> > Sent:	Wednesday, November 22, 2000 2:48 PM
> > To:	ips@ece.cmu.edu
> > Subject:	Fibre Channel-to-Ethernet Routers?
> > 
> > 	Hello. I'm new to this list, so I apologize if this is a standard
> > newbie question. 
> > 
> > 	Is anybody aware of the existence of an available or soon-to-be
> > available Fibre Channel-to-Ethernet router. I won't bombard you folks
> with
> > the details, but the company for which I do network design is looking
> for
> > a
> > solution to extend a VMS cluster's Fibre Channel SAN fifty miles to a
> > disaster recovery site we're building. The current, and exorbitantly
> > expensive, solution is to purchase two strands of dark fibre and to
> light
> > it
> > up with equipment which supports fibre channel such as Luxn's Dense WDM
> > modules. 
> > 
> > 	A much cheaper solution would be to use a Gigabit Ethernet pipe
> > provided by Ameritech. Cheaper by more than a factor of 10, in fact. The
> > only problem is that this GigaMAN service supports Ethernet and Ethernet
> > only. So my aim is to get the Fibre Channel traffic riding on that
> > Ethernet
> > pipe. 
> > 
> > 	From the investigation I've done, it appears while several
> > manufacturers have announced Fibre-Channel-to-Ethernet
> > routers/gateways/media converters (Gadzoox, Crossroads, Entrada, etc.),
> > they
> > are all talking about shipping 1st Quarter 2001. I'm not going to put
> much
> > stock in these claims as product ship dates have a habit of creeping. 
> > 
> > 	If there's no currently available embedded solution, I suppose there
> > is another route. Many of the FAQ's I've read on Fibre Channel say that
> > you
> > can slap a FC and a Gigabit Ethernet NIC both into a workstation and
> route
> > between the two interfaces. Has anyone on this list tried such a setup?
> > I'd
> > be curious about the latency added by handling such routing in software
> > rather than through an ASIC. What OS is capable of routing Fibre Channel
> > Over IP between two such interfaces?
> > 
> > 	thanks for any help you might be able to provide,
> > 	-carl hirsch
> > 	network engineer
> > 	computershare investor services