RE: iFCP fabric attachments

[Charles Monia <cmonia@NishanSystems.com>]

Hi Robert:

See my remarks below. Although I've addressed this matter in another
response, I feel it's important enough to bear repeating here.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robert B. Harmon [mailto:bharmon@entradanet.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2000 10:46 AM
> To: cmonia@NishanSystems.com; ips@ece.cmu.edu
> Subject: iFCP fabric attachments
> 
> 
> I think this is a very interesting proposal, storage gateways are
> possible
> at several different levels, great work.
> 
>  Section 3.3 says: 
>     The gateway builds the store of N_PORT network addresses for
>     external devices in the IP fabric by:
> 
>     a) Intercepting name service requests issued by directly-attached
>        N_PORTs and redirecting them to the iSNS name server or,
> 
>     b) Intercepting incoming N_PORT login requests from external Fibre
>        Channel devices.                             
> 
> Could you explain how this would work in the presence of existing
> Fibre Channel SNS and master switch?
> 
> I noticed on your comparison of FCIP and iFCP that the SAN islands
> contain no Switches or Hubs, N_PORTS are connected directly to iFCP 
> devices. Is is possible under to have iFCP gateways and FC switches?
>

Yes it is. 

In the gateway model, the only entities that the gateway needs to expose to
the IP network are the N_PORTs. Conversly, to the FC network, the gateway
appears as an FC switch element. For that reason, support for loops and FC
switches of any type become gateway implementation options.  

I regret that time constraints did not permit such implementation issues to
be addressed in detail.

Charles