Q: What are they key features of these new products?
A: Brocade has developed a unique set of FC routing and FCIP services that increase the functionality, scalability, and versatility of today's SANs. These key features include:

• Hierarchical routing and FC address translation for non-disruptive implementations
• Industry-leading 4 Gbit/sec FC routing capabilities
• Backbone-to-edge routing for flexible topologies and efficient sharing of shared resources
• Hardware-based compression on Gigabit Ethernet ports
• Eight virtual FCIP tunnels per Gigabit Ethernet port
• Line rate performance for FCIP
• TCP optimization, including large window sizes for maximum efficiency over high latency networks
• Hardware-based IPSec encryption
• Fast Write (Write Acceleration) to optimize performance of synchronous applications in high-latency WANs
• Tape Pipelining to minimize the impact of high latency networks on remote tape backup.

Q: What is Fibre Channel routing?
A: One of the basic requirements for today's organizations is the need to create Fibre Channel SANs that can grow in a scalable, cost-effective manner. For example, organizations with multiple SAN islands would like to connect them into a more unified SAN environment. Unfortunately, many organizations have not attempted to merge their SAN islands for fear that the administrative workload, risk, and expense would not justify the benefit of enhanced connectivity. The Brocade FC routing capabilities enable devices located on separate SAN fabrics to communicate without the need to merge the fabrics into a single large SAN environment. By using this capability, organizations can interconnect devices without having to redesign and reconfigure their entire environment, thereby eliminating the potential risks and costs of downtime.

Q: What are Logical SANs (LSANs)?
A: LSANs are essentially zones that span fabrics. When devices on different fabrics are allowed to communicate, the resulting connectivity group is known as a Logical SAN (LSAN). LSANs enable selective resource sharing across multiple SANs by leveraging current zoning tools and methodologies. In addition to optimizing resource utilization, this approach helps improve scalability by:

• Minimizing the risk and complexity of large fabrics
• Right-sizing SANs based on application and business requirements
• Simplifying management and fault isolation
• Protecting and extending current technology investments since LSANs require no changes to existing SAN switches or attached edge devices, and they leverage existing zoning tools

Q: What are some use cases for Fibre Channel routing?
A: There are many use cases, including:

• Inter-SAN connectivity: FC routing capabilities enable organizations to connect devices in separate SAN fabrics without merging the fabrics, making it easier to support equipment from multiple OEMs and multiple firmware revisions and to migrate infrastructure and/or data. Organizations can better implement secure, selective resource sharing through LSANs while improving resource utilization.
• Data replication for disaster recovery/business continuance: Organizations can utilize FC routing capabilities combined with FCIP to replicate data in a geographically distant location for disaster recovery. The key benefit of this approach is that FCIP provides distance-independent connectivity over IP WANs, and when combined with FC routing, the SANs do not merge over the IP WAN. This solution is managed seamlessly alongside the rest of the SAN infrastructure.
• Data migration: Organizations can simplify and accelerate many ongoing operational events, including moving equipment in/out of lease, server consolidation, storage consolidation, and application rebalancing, leveraging significant savings opportunities.

Q: What is FCIP for long-distance connectivity? How is the Brocade solution different?
A: The Brocade FCIP tunneling service enables organizations to extend their Fibre Channel SANs over longer distances that would be impractical or expensive with native Fibre Channel links. This service offers the advantage of integrating the FCIP link within the Brocade 48000 Director or within the Brocade 7500 switch - an easier and more cost-effective deployment and management method than an external gateway.

A key differentiator for Brocade is that the FC routing function enables the two fabrics connected through an FCIP link to remain separate rather than merging them into a single fabric. As a result, this FC routing and FCIP approach enables a more secure distance-connectivity solution for disaster recovery. Brocade also supports up to eight virtual tunnels per physical link for maximum fan-in efficiency.

Q: What are some use cases for FCIP tunneling?
A: FCIP is cost-effective solution for many organizations that need to share or move data for long distances:

• Long-distance SAN extension: Share data between SANs connected over IP networks
• Business continuance and disaster recovery: Enable data replication, movement, and access between geographically disparate SANs, leveraging IP WAN infrastructures
• Consolidated backup of remote offices: Back up remote offices to a centralized location using an IP link

Q: What management tools are available for the Brocade FR4-18i blade and Brocade 7500 switch?
A: The Brocade FR4-18i blade and Brocade 7500 switch are managed using the same tools as the other switches: Telnet, Brocade Advanced Web Tools, SNMP, Brocade Fabric Manager (optional), and Brocade SMI Agent-based applications.

Q: How can I use the Brocade FR4-18i blade and Brocade 7500 switch for distance connectivity? What are the differences between long-distance connectivity using Fibre Channel and FCIP?
A: The Brocade FR4-18i blade and Brocade 7500 switch can connect SANs through Fibre Channel or IP networks as follows:

• In a pure Fibre Channel environment, a very low overhead mechanism enables the efficient movement of data through the SAN. Before a frame is forwarded from device to device, assurances are made that there is adequate buffer space available for that frame in the receiver. With this approach, data can progress through the network without the unnecessary retransmissions caused by frames being dropped at receivers due to insufficient buffer space. The mechanism used to communicate the availability of adequate buffer space is the buffer credit. Each buffer credit represents an amount of reserved storage that can be used to receive frames. Ports will support up to a maximum of 255 credits to a single port - equal to 255 km at 2 Gbit/sec or more than 500 km at 1 Gbit/sec.
• FCIP is an encapsulating protocol that takes Fibre Channel frames and packages them as data in a TCP stream. This enables Fibre Channel traffic to flow over networks that do not support Fibre Channel as a native protocol. An FCIP gateway will typically have both a Fibre Channel connection and a TCP/IP port. It takes inbound Fibre Channel frames and assembles TCP data stream segments that include the original Fibre Channel frames as payload. It then forwards the byte stream to another FCIP gateway device that reverses the process. It is important to note that buffer credits are not used to regulate the flow of frames between the FCIP gateways. Because FCIP performance is a function of the quality of the network (latency and packet drops), performance figures will vary based on the network provider's SLA.