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19-16
Cisco MDS 9000 Family Fabric Manager Configuration Guide
OL-6965-03, Cisco MDS SAN-OS Release 2.x
Chapter 19 FCIP Configuration
Configuring Advanced FCIP Interfaces
Figure 19-10 FCIP B Port and Fibre Channel E Port
B ports bridge Fibre Channel traffic from one E port to a remote E port without participating in
fabric-related activities such as principal switch election, domain ID assignment, and Fibre Channel
routing (FSPF). For example, Class F traffic entering a SAN extender does not interact with the B port.
The traffic is transparently propagated (bridged) over a WAN interface before exiting the remote B port.
This bridge results in both E ports exchanging Class F information that ultimately leads to normal ISL
behavior such as fabric merging and routing.
FCIP links between B port SAN extenders do not exchange the same information as FCIP links between
E ports, and are therefore incompatible. This is reflected by the terminology used in FC-BB-2: while VE
ports establish a virtual ISL over a FCIP link, B ports use a B access ISL.
FC
FC
FC
F
F
F
Switch A
GE
FC
FC
VE
F
E
Switch C
FC
GE
FC
E
VE
F
Switch B FCIP link
Virtual ISL
IP
91559
IP
FC
FC
FC
F
F
FC
FC
B
B
B
access
B
access
E
Switch A
FC bridge
FC
FC
FC
E
F
E
Switch C
FC bridge
FC
FC
FC
E
E
F
Switch B B access ISL
FCIP link
ISL
ISL
E port
B port