Configuring B Ports

While E ports typically interconnect Fibre Channel switches, some SAN extender devices, such as Cisco's PA-FC-1G Fibre Channel port adapter and the SN 5428-2 storage router, implement a bridge port model to connect geographically dispersed fabrics. This model uses B port as described in the T11 Standard FC-BB-2. B ports bridge Fibre Channel traffic from a local E port to a remote E port without participating in fabric-related activities such as principal switch election, domain ID assignment, and Fibre Channel fabric shortest path first (FSPF) routing. The IPS module and MPS-14/2 module support FCIP links that originate from a B port SAN extender device by implementing the B access ISL protocol on a Gigabit Ethernet interface.

To enable B port mode using Fabric Manager, follow these steps:

  1. Choose ISLs > FCIP from the Physical Attributes pane.

From Device manager, choose IP > FCIP. You see the FCIP dialog box.

  1. Click the Tunnels tab.
  2. Click the Create Row icon in Fabric Manager or the Create button in Device Manager.
  3. Set the ProfileID and TunnelID fields.
  4. Set the RemoteIPAddress and RemoteTCPPort fields for the peer IP address you are configuring.
  5. Check the PassiveMode check box if you do not want this end of the link to initiate a TCP connection.
  6. Optionally set the NumTCPCon field to the number of TCP connections from this FCIP link.
  7. Check the Enable check box in the B Port section of the dialog box and optionally check the KeepAlive check box if you want a response sent to an ELS Echo frame received from the FCIP peer.
  8. Optionally set the other fields in this dialog box and click Create to create this FCIP link.


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