FCIP Annex E

[Black_David@emc.com]

> Please examine the title and first paragraph of Annex C
> (which encompasses pages 39 to 44).
> 
> "ANNEX E - FC-BB-2 Inputs
> 
>   "This annex contains text from previous FCIP drafts that,
>   because of the new model structure, probably belongs in
>   FC-BB-2 [4]. As soon as the correctness of this annex is
>   agreed, its contents will be transferred to a T11 document
>   do be used in the development of FC-BB-2."
> 
> The correctness of the annex (such as it is) has been agreed
> among the FCIP authors and the content of the annex can now
> be found at:
> 
>     ftp://ftp.t11.org/t11/pub/fc/bb-2/01-342v0.pdf
> 
> The annex will not appear in FCIP revision 04.
> > 
In at attempt to make sure that we don't lose anything
important in removing this text from the FCIP draft,
here are some suggestions:

E-4.3 FCIP's Interaction with FC and TCP {partial}

This is about what happens when FCIP drops an FC frame
for some reason (one of the checks in 6.6.2.2 failed).
Annex D needs to place responsibility for recovery from
this event on the FC entity, which may defer to something
else (e.g., the FC entity may ignore this in favor of
FCP or SCSI retry).  A sentence in 6.6.2.2. pointing
out where the responsibility for recovery lies and
giving possible examples would be a useful addition to
the last paragraph.

E-5.3 TCP Connection Management
E-5.5 Multiple Connection Management

Some of the information in these sections probably needs to
be in both FCIP and FC-BB-2.  FCIP should contain information
describing how TCP connections may be mapped to FC port
connections (Section 7 in -03 is silent on this topic).
The first paragraph of E-5.3 and most of E-5.5
fall into this category, although they should be generalized to
avoid references to ISLs, E ports and B ports.  The connection
setup material in E-5.3 seems to be adequately covered in 7.1
and its subsections.

E-5.4.1 Determining loss of connectivity {partial}

Somewhere, possibly in Annex D, making the FC entity
responsible for checking for loss of TCP connectivity
ought to be enhanced by giving the HLO SW_ILS as an
example of how this could be done without requiring it
to be used.

E-5.6 Multi Virtual ISL Management

This looks like an FC fabric topology issue, and hence
moving it to FC-BB-2 makes sense (IMHO).

E-8.3 Corruption {partial}

Most of this seems to be covered in 6.6.2.2, but noting that
FC has the option to begin transmitting a frame and terminate
that with an EOF invalidating the partially transmitted frame
should be added.  Annex D does not appear to capture
the possible interactions between the FC and FCIP entities
in this area - some more explanation of possibilities and
responsibilities is needed.
 
E-8.4 Timeouts {partial}

The mechanism to deal with this is covered in 6.6.2.3, but
that section would be considerably more readable if it included
an explanation of what R_A_TOV and E_D_TOV govern and why only
R_A_TOV needs to be enforced in FCIP.

E-10.1 Flow control on FC network

Section 7.4 covers this topic, but calling out FC
Buffer-to-Buffer flow control as an example of how
arrival of frames from the fabric can be controlled
at the bottom of p.21 would improve readability.

Thanks,
--David

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David L. Black, Senior Technologist
EMC Corporation, 42 South St., Hopkinton, MA  01748
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