• Connects Fibre Channel SAN islands over an IP network • Many-to-many loosely coupled architecture • iFCP switches map FC to IP and proxy FCIDs between SANs • Disruption in one region does not propagate to other regions • Controlled by “zoning” on the iFCP switch
One of iFCPs advantages over FCIP as a SAN extension protocol is that iFCP is a loosely-coupled architecture. When two or more sites are connected by FCIP, a change in one site (say a switch coming online with a Domain ID conflict, or even coming online successfully) will cause disruption at all of the other sites. With iFCP, the iFCP switches proxy fabric services between each connected fabric, so disruptions in one fabric will not propagate to the other fabrics. However, one of the problems with iFCP, is that iFCP proxies FC_IDs. iFCP switches therefore modify each FC frame header as it translates FC_IDs between one SAN island and another. This adds considerably to latency.