Internet DRAFT - draft-ietf-pwe3-fc-encap
draft-ietf-pwe3-fc-encap
INTERNET-DRAFT David L. Black (ed.)
PWE3 WG EMC Corporation
Intended Status: Standard Track Linda Dunbar(ed.)
Expires: November 2011 Huawei Technologies
Moran Roth
Infinera
Ronen Solomon
Orckit-Corrigent
May 3, 2011
Encapsulation Methods for Transport of
Fibre Channel Traffic over MPLS Networks
draft-ietf-pwe3-fc-encap-16.txt
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Abstract
A Fibre Channel pseudowire (PW) is used to carry Fibre Channel
traffic over an MPLS network. This enables service providers to take
advantage of MPLS to offer "emulated" Fibre Channel services. This
document specifies the encapsulation of Fibre Channel traffic within
a pseudowire. It also specifies the common procedures for using a PW
to provide a Fibre Channel service.
Conventions used in this document
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC-2119].
Table of Contents
1. Introduction...................................................3
1.1. Transparency..............................................3
1.2. Bandwidth Efficiency......................................4
1.3. Reliability...............................................5
2. Reference Model................................................5
3. Encapsulation..................................................8
3.1. The Control Word.........................................10
3.2. MTU Requirements.........................................11
3.3. Mapping of FC traffic to PW packets......................11
3.3.1. FC Data Frames (PT=0) and FC Login Frames (PT=1)....11
3.3.2. FC Primitive Sequences and Primitive Signals (PT=2).12
3.3.3. FC PW Control Frames (PT=6).........................14
3.4. PW failure mapping.......................................15
4. Signaling of FC Pseudowires...................................15
5. Timing Considerations.........................................15
6. Security Considerations.......................................17
7. Applicability Statement.......................................17
8. IANA Considerations...........................................18
9. Acknowledgments...............................................20
10. Normative References.........................................20
11. Informative references.......................................21
Authors' Addresses...............................................22
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1. Introduction
Fibre Channel (FC) is a high-speed communications technology, used
primarily for Storage Area Networks (SANs). Within a single site
(e.g., data center), an FC-based SAN connects servers to storage
systems, and FC can be extended across sites. When FC is extended
across multiple sites, the most common usage is storage replication
in support of recovery from disasters (e.g., flood or fire that takes
a site out of operation). This is particularly the case over longer
distances where network latency results in unacceptable performance
for a server whose storage is not at the same site. Fibre Channel is
standardized by INCITS Technical Committee T11 [T11] and multiple
methods for encapsulating and transporting FC traffic over other
networks have been developed [FC-BB-6].
FCIP, as described in [RFC3821] and [FC-BB-6], interconnects
otherwise isolated FC SANs over IP Networks. FCIP uses FC Frame
Encapsulation [RFC3643] to encapsulate FC frames for tunneling over
an IP-based network. Since IP networks may drop or reorder packets,
FCIP relies on TCP to retransmit dropped frames and restore the
delivery order of reordered frames. Due to possible delay variation
and TCP timeouts, special timing mechanisms are required to ensure
correct Fibre Channel operation over FCIP [FC-BB-6].
MPLS networks can be provisioned and operated with very low loss
rates and very low probability of reordering, making it possible to
directly interconnect Fibre Channel ports over MPLS. A Fibre Channel
pseudowire (FC PW) is a method to transparently transport FC traffic
over an MPLS network resulting in behavior similar to a pair of FC
ports that are directly connected by a physical FC link. The result
is simpler control processing by comparison to FCIP.
This document specifies the encapsulation of FC traffic into an MPLS
pseudowire and related PW procedures to transport FC traffic over
MPLS PWs. The complete FC pseudowire specification consists of this
document and the FC PW portion of the T11 [FC-BB-6] standard. The
following subsections describe some of the requirements for
transporting FC traffic over an MPLS network.
1.1. Transparency
Transparent extension of an FC link is a key requirement for
transporting FC traffic over a PW. This requires the FC PW to emulate
an FC Link between two FC ports, similar to the approach defined for
FC over GFPT in [FC-BB-6]. GFPT is an Asynchronous Transparent
Generic Framing Procedure specified by ITU-T, see [FC-BB-6] for
details and reference to the ITU-T specifications. This results in
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transparent forwarding of FC traffic over the MPLS network from both
the FC Fabric and the network operator points of view.
Transparency distinguishes the FC PW approach from FCIP. An FC PW
logically connects the FC port on the FC link attached to one end of
the PW directly with the FC port on the far end of the FC link
attached to the other end of the PW, whereas FCIP introduces FC
B_Ports at both ends of the extended FC link; each FC B_Port is
connected to an FC E_Port in an FC switch on the same side of the
link extension.
1.2. Bandwidth Efficiency
The bandwidth allocated to a PW may be less than the rate of the
attached FC port. When there is no data exchange on a native FC link,
Idle Primitive Signals are continuously exchanged between the two FC
ports. In order to improve the bandwidth efficiency across the MPLS
network, it is necessary for the FC PW PE to suppress (or drop) the
Idle Primitive signals generated by its adjacent FC ports. The far
end FC PW PE regenerates Idle Primitive signals to send to its
adjacent FC port as required, see [FC-BB-6].
FC link control protocols require an FC port to continuously send the
same FC Primitive Sequence [FC-FS-2] until a reply is received or
some other event occurs. To improve bandwidth efficiency, the FC PW
PE encapsulates a subset of repeated FC Primitive Sequences to send
across the WAN [FC-BB-6]. For example, in a sequence of identical
received primitives, only every fourth primitive may be sent across
the MPLS network. Alternatively, a time-based approach may be used to
send a copy of the repeated FC Primitive Sequence once every few
milliseconds. The far end FC PW PE regenerates the FC link behavior
by continuously sending the Primitive Sequence most recently received
from the WAN until a new primitive signal, primitive sequence or data
frame is received from the WAN.
The sending FC PW PE may unilaterally choose any convenient subset
for sending the same FC Primitive Sequence. This is acceptable
because the receiving FC PW PE generates a continuous stream of the
most recently received FC Primitive Sequence on the outgoing native
FC link, independent of the arrival rate of that FC Primitive
Sequence from the WAN. In practice, a 10:1 reduction in FC Primitive
Sequence transmission rate achieves 90% of the bandwidth benefits
without loss of FC functionality and sending a copy every few
milliseconds does not pose a serious risk of exceeding the timeouts
specified in Section 5 below.
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These bandwidth efficiency techniques may cause changes in the FC
traffic that traverses an FC PW (e.g., number of IDLE signals or
number of identical Primitive Sequences), but the far end FC PW PE's
regeneration of FC link behavior on the attached FC port is
transparent to the FC ports connected to each PW PE.
1.3. Reliability
Fibre Channel does not employ a native frame retransmission protocol,
and treats most frame delivery failures as errors. FC SAN traffic
requires a very low frame loss rate because the typical result of a
failure to deliver a frame is an I/O operation failure. Recovery from
such I/O failures involves I/O operation retries after what may be a
significant delay (30 second and 60 second timeouts are common). In
addition, such retries are likely to be logged as errors indicating
possible problems with FC equipment or cables. Hence, drops, errors
and discards of FC frames must be very rare for an FC PW.
FC SAN implementations have limited tolerance for frame reordering.
Any reordering affecting more than a few frames within a single
higher level operation (e.g., a read or write I/O) is usually treated
as an error by the destination FC port, resulting in discards of the
frames involved; some deployed FC implementations treat all such
within-operation frame reordering as errors that result in frame
discards. As a result, FC frame reordering must be minimized for an
FC PW.
The FC PW does not compensate for frame drops, discards or
reordering. The MPLS network that hosts the FC PW is expected to be
designed and operated in a fashion that makes such events very rare.
In contrast to the TTL field in an IP packet, FC uses a constant
delivery timeout value (R_A_TOV) for which 10 seconds is the default.
Each FC frame must be delivered or discarded within that timeout
period after it is sent, see Section 5.
2. Reference Model
An FC PW extends a native FC link over an MPLS network. This document
specifies the PW encapsulation for FC. Figure 1 describes the
reference models (derived from [RFC3985]) that support the FC PW. FC
traffic is received by PE1's FC attachment channel, encapsulated at
PE1, transported across MPLS network, decapsulated at PE2, and
transmitted onward via the PE2's FC attachment channel. This document
assumes that a pseudowire can be provisioned statically or via a
signaling protocol as defined in [RFC4447].
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|<-------------- Emulated Service ----------------->|
| |
| |<------- Pseudowire -------->| |
| | | |
| | |<-- MPLS Tunnel -->| | |
| V V V V |
V AC +----+ +----+ AC V
+-----+ | | PE1|===================| PE2| | +-----+
| |----------|............PW1..............|----------| |
| CE1 | | | | | | | | CE2 |
| |----------|............PW2..............|----------| |
+-----+ ^ | | |===================| | | ^ +-----+
^ | +----+ +----+ | | ^
| | Provider Edge 1 Provider Edge 2 | |
| | | |
Customer | | Customer
Edge 1 | | Edge 2
| |
| |
Native FC service Native FC service
Figure 1: PWE3 FC Interface Reference Configuration
The following reference model describes the termination point of each
end of the PW within the PE:
+-----------------------------------+
| PE |
+---+ +-+ +-----+ +------+ +------+ +-+
| | |P| | | |PW ter| | MPLS | |P|
| |<==|h|<=| NSP |<=|minati|<=|Tunnel|<=|h|<== From network
| | |y| | | |on | | | |y|
| C | +-+ +-----+ +------+ +------+ +-+
| E | | |
| | +-+ +-----+ +------+ +------+ +-+
| | |P| | | |PW ter| | MPLS | |P|
| |==>|h|=>| NSP |=>|minati|=>|Tunnel|=>|h|==> To network
| | |y| | | |on | | | |y|
+---+ +-+ +-----+ +------+ +------+ +-+
| |
+-----------------------------------+
Figure 2: PW reference diagram
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The Native Service Processing (NSP) function includes the following
functionality:
o Idle Suppression: any FC Idle signals received from the source
PE's attached FC port are suppressed and re-generated at the
destination PE to send on its attached FC port when there is no
other FC traffic to send;
o FC Primitive Sequence Reduction: a subset of repetitive FC
Primitive Sequences received from the attached FC port at the
source PE is selected for WAN transmission, with the destination
PE sending the FC Primitive Sequence most recently received from
the WAN on the destination PE's attached FC port continuously
until a new packet is received from the WAN; and
o Flow Control: the Alternate Simple Flow Control (ASFC) protocol is
used for buffer management in concert with the peer PW PE's NSP
function so that FC traffic is not dropped. ASFC is a simple
pause/resume protocol that allows operation repetition; the
receiver responds to the first pause or resume operation in an
identical sequence of operations, and ignores the rest of the
sequence.
The NSP flow control functionality is required to extend FC's credit-
based flow control to address situations where the number of buffer
credits available to an FC link is insufficient to utilize the
available bandwidth over the additional distance and latency
represented by the FC pseudowire. The NSPs avoid this problem by
inserting ASFC into FC's link flow control used on the attached FC
ports, see [FC-BB-6].
In contrast, Idle Suppression and FC Primitive Sequence Reduction are
bandwidth optimizations that are included in the NSP for clarity in
this document. Analogous optimizations are not treated as part of
the NSP by other pseudowires (e.g., ATM idle frame suppression is not
considered to be an NSP function by [RFC4717]).
The NSP function is specified in detail by [FC-BB-6].
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3. Encapsulation
This specification provides port to port transport of FC encapsulated
traffic. There are a number of port types defined by Fibre Channel,
including:
o An N_port is a port on the node (e.g. host or storage device) used
with both FC-P2P (Point to Point) or FC-SW (Switched fabric)
topologies. Also known as a Node port.
o An NL_port is a port on the node used with an FC-AL (Arbitrated
Loop) topology. Also known as a Node Loop port.
o An F_port is a port on the switch that connects to a node point-
to-point (i.e. connects to an N_port). Also known as a Fabric
port. An F_port is not loop capable.
o An FL_port is a port on the switch that connects to a FC-AL loop
(i.e. to NL_ports). Also known as Fabric Loop port.
o An E_port is a port used to connect two Fibre Channel switches.
Also known as an Expansion port. When E_ports between two switches
are connected to form a link, that link is referred to as an
inter-switch link (ISL).
Among the port types listed above, only the following FC connections
(as specified in [FC-BB-6]) are supported by an FC PW over MPLS:
- N_Port to N_Port, established by an FC PLOGI (Port Login)
operation
- N_Port to F_Port, established by an FC FLOGI (Fabric Login)
operation
- E_Port to E_Port, established by an FC ELP (Exchange Link
Parameters) operation
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FC traffic flowing over an FC PW is subdivided into four payload
types (PT) that are encoded in the PW Control Word (see Section 3.1):
1. FC login traffic (PT = 1): FC login operations and responses that
establish connections between FC ports. The three FC login
operations are PLOGI, FLOGI, and ELP. These operations and their
responses may require the NSP to allocate buffer resources, see
the specification of Login Exchange Monitors in [FC-BB-6].
2. FC data traffic (PT = 0): All FC frames other than those involved
in an FC login operation.
3. FC Primitive Sequences and Signals (PT = 2): Native FC link
control operations - 4-character primitive sequences and signals
that are not encapsulated in FC frames. See [FC-BB-6] and
[FC-FS-2].
4. FC PW Control (PT = 6): FC PW control operations exchanged only
between the endpoints of the PW. FC PW control operations are used
for ASFC flow control, ping (e.g., for round trip latency
measurement) and reporting native FC link errors, see [FC-BB-6].
This FC PW specification is limited to use with FC service classes 2,
3 and F (see [FC-FS-2]). Other FC service classes (e.g., 1, 4 and 6)
MUST NOT be used with an FC PW. Numbered FC service classes are used
for end-to-end FC traffic, whereas service class F is used for inter-
switch traffic in an FC switched fabric.
This FC PW specification is limited to native FC attachment links
that employ an 8b/10b transmission code (see [FC-FS-2]). The
protocol specified in this document converts a received 10b code to
its 8b counterpart for PW encapsulation, and hence does not support
attached FC links that use a 64b/66b transmission code (e.g., 10GFC,
16GFC); such links MUST NOT be attached to an FC PW PE unless their
link speed can be negotiated to one that uses 8b/10b encoding. If an
invalid 10b code that cannot be converted to an 8b code is received
from an FC link, the PE sends an FC PW control frame to report the
error, see [FC-BB-6].
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3.1. The Control Word
The Generic PW Control Word, as defined in "PWE3 Control Word"
[RFC4385] MUST be used for FC PW to facilitate the transport of short
packets (by setting the Length field as detailed below), and convey
the flag bits defined below. The structure of the Control Word for
the FC PW is as follows:
1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|0 0 0 0| PT |X|0 0| Length | Sequence Number |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 3 - Control Word Structure
The first four bits of the PW Control Word MUST be set to 0 by the
ingress PE to indicate PW data.
Three of the four Flags bits are used to convey the PT - Payload Type
indication. The 3-bit binary value in this field identifies the
payload type carried by a PW packet. The following types are defined:
PT = 0: FC data frame.
PT = 1: FC login frame.
PT = 2: FC Primitive Sequence(s) and/or Primitive Signal(s).
PT = 6: FC PW Control Frame (refer to [FC-BB-6] for usage).
Packets with other values in the PT field are not valid for the FC PW
and MUST be discarded by the receiving FC PW PE.
X - This flag bit is not used by this version of the protocol. It
SHOULD be set to zero by the sender and MUST be ignored by the
receiver.
The fragmentation bits (bits 8-9) are not used by the FC PW protocol.
These bits may be used in the future for FC specific indications as
defined in [RFC4385]. The fragmentation bits SHOULD be set to zero by
the ingress PE and MUST be ignored by the egress PE.
The Length field enables recovery of the original pseudowire packet
when a short packet is padded to the minimum 64 octet packet size
required for Ethernet, see [RFC4385]. The Length field MUST be used
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for packets shorter than 64 octets, MUST be set to zero for longer
packets, and MUST be processed according to the rules specified in
[RFC4385].
The sequence number is not used for the FC PW and MUST be set to 0 by
the ingress PE, and MUST be ignored by the egress PE.
3.2. MTU Requirements
The MPLS network MUST be able to transport the largest Fibre Channel
frame after encapsulation, including the overhead associated with the
encapsulation. The maximum FC frame size is 2164 octets without PW
and MPLS labels (refer to Figure 4); this maximum size is a constant
value that is required for all FC implementations [FC-FS-2]. The MPLS
network SHOULD accommodate frames of up to 2500 octets in order to
support possible future increases in the maximum FC frame size.
Fragmentation, as described in [RFC4623], SHALL NOT be used for an FC
PW, therefore the network MUST be configured with a minimum MTU that
is sufficient to transport the largest encapsulated FC frame.
3.3. Mapping of FC traffic to PW packets
FC frames, Primitive Sequences, and Primitive Signals are transported
over the PW. All packet types are carried over a single PW. In
addition to the PW Control Word, an FC Encapsulation Header is
included in the PW packet. This FC Encapsulation Header is not used
in this version of the protocol; it SHOULD be set to zero by the
sender and MUST be ignored by the receiver.
3.3.1. FC Data Frames (PT=0) and FC Login Frames (PT=1)
FC data frames and FC login frames share a common encapsulation
format, except that the PT field in the FC PW control word is set to
0 for data frames and is set to 1 for login frames. An FC login frame
contains an FC PLOGI, FLOGI or ELP operation or response that
requires special processing by the NSP in support of flow control,
see [FC-BB-6].
Each FC data frame or login frame is mapped to a PW packet, including
the Start Of Frame (SOF) delimiter, frame header, CRC field and the
End Of Frame (EOF) delimiter, as shown in figure 4.
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1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| FC PW Control Word |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| FC Encapsulation Header |
+---------------+-----------------------------------------------+
| SOF Code | Reserved |
+---------------+-----------------------------------------------+
| |
+----- FC Frame ----+
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| CRC |
+---------------+-----------------------------------------------+
| EOF Code | Reserved |
+---------------+-----------------------------------------------+
Figure 4 - FC frame (SOF/Data/CRC/EOF) encapsulation in PW packet
The SOF and EOF frame delimiters are each encoded into a single octet
as specified in [RFC3643], except that the codes for delimiters that
apply only to FC service class 4 (SOFi4, SOFc4, SOFn4, EOFdt, EOFdti,
EOFrt, EOFrti - see [FC-FS-2]) MUST NOT be used.
The CRC in the frame is obtained directly from the FC attachment
channel, so that the PW PE is not required to re-calculate the CRC or
to check the CRC in the received frame. The CRC will be checked by
the FC port that receives the frame, ensuring that coverage is
provided for data errors that occur between the PW endpoints. This
CRC behavior differs from the FCS retention technique for PWs defined
in [RFC4720] which states that "as usual, the FCS MUST be examined at
the ingress PE, and errored frames MUST be discarded."
3.3.2. FC Primitive Sequences and Primitive Signals (PT=2)
FC Primitive Sequences and Primitive Signals are FC ordered sets. On
an 8b/10b-coded FC link, an ordered set consists of four 10b
characters, starting with the K28.5 character, followed by three
Dxx.y data characters. All FC ordered sets start with a K28.5 control
character, but the three following Dxx.y data characters differ
depending on the ordered set. A Kxx.y control character has a
different 10b code from the corresponding Dxx.y data character, but
uses the same 8b code (e.g., K28.5 and D28.5 both use the 8b code
0xBC). Here are two examples of ordered sets:
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o Idle(IDLE) is K28.5 - D21.4 - D21.5 - D21.5. This FC primitive
signal is sent when the FC link is idle; it is suppressed by the
FC PW NSP and not sent over the WAN.
o Link Reset Response(LRR) is K28.5 - D21.1 - D31.5 - D9.2 (this FC
primitive sequence is used as part of FC link initialization and
recovery).
Each ordered set is encapsulated in a PW packet containing the
encoded K28.5 control character [FC-BB-6], followed by three encoded
data characters, as shown in Figure 5.
1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| FC PW Control Word |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| FC Encapsulation Header |
+---------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
| K28.5 | Dxx.y | Dxx.y | Dxx.y |
+---------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
| |
+---- ----+
| |
+---------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
| K28.5 | Dxx.y | Dxx.y | Dxx.y |
+---------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
Figure 5 - FC Ordered Sets encapsulation in PW packet
The K28.5 10b control character received from the PE's attached FC
link is encoded for the FC PW as its 8b counterpart (0xBC). Because
the same 8b value (0xBC) is used to encode a D28.5 data word, the
receiving FC PW PE:
o MUST check for presence of an 8b K28.5 value (0xBC) at the start
of each ordered set (see Figure 5), and MUST send that value as a
10b K28.5 character on the attached FC link.
o MUST send the following three Dxx.y 8b values as Dxx.y 10b
characters on the attached FC link and MUST NOT send any of these
Dxx.y 8b values as 10b Kxx.y characters on the attached FC link.
A PW packet may contain one or more encoded FC Ordered sets [FC-BB-
6]. The Length field in the FC PW Control Word is used to indicate
the packet length when the PW packet contains multiple Ordered Sets.
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For this reason, FC PW packets that contain FC Ordered Sets MUST NOT
be larger than 60 octets (8 octets of header words plus at most 13
ordered sets), in order to ensure that the Length field contains a
non-zero value, see [RFC4385].
Idle Primitive Signals could be carried over the PW in the same
manner as Primitive Sequences. However, [FC-BB-6] requires that Idle
Primitive Signals be dropped by the Ingress PE and re-generated by
the egress PE in order to reduce bandwidth consumption (see [FC-BB-6]
for further details).
The egress PE extracts the Primitive Sequence or Primitive Signal
from the received PW packet. For a Primitive Sequence, the PE
continues transmitting the same FC Ordered Set to its attached FC
port until an FC frame or another ordered set is received over the
PW; see Section 1.2 above for discussion of ingress PE transmission
behavior for Primitive Sequences. A Primitive Signal is sent once,
except that Idle Primitive Signals are sent continuously when there
is nothing else to send.
3.3.3. FC PW Control Frames (PT=6)
FC PW Control Frames are transported over the PW, by encapsulating
each frame in a PW packet with PT=6 in the Control Word. FC PW
Control Frame payloads are generated and terminated by the
corresponding FC entity. FC PW Control frames are used for FC PW flow
control (ASFC), ping and transmission of error indications. [FC-BB-6]
specifies the generation and processing of FC PW Control Frames. FC
PW Control Frames are always shorter than 64 octets, and hence the
Length field in the FC Control Word indicates their length.
1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| FC PW Control Word |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| FC Encapsulation Header |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
+----- FC PW Control Frame ----+
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
Figure 6 - FC PW Control frame encapsulation in PW packet
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3.4. PW failure mapping
PW failures are detected through PW signaling failure, PW status
notifications as defined in [RFC4447], or through PW OAM mechanisms
and MUST be mapped to emulated signal failure indications. Sending
the FC link failure indication to its attached FC link is performed
by the NSP, as defined by [FC-BB-6].
4. Signaling of FC Pseudowires
RFC4447 specifies the use of the MPLS Label Distribution Protocol,
LDP, as a protocol for setting up and maintaining pseudowires. This
section describes the use of specific fields and error codes used to
control FC PW.
The PW Type field in the PWid FEC element and PW generalized ID FEC
elements MUST be set to the "FC Port Mode" value in section 8 below.
The Control Word is REQUIRED for FC pseudowires. Therefore the C-Bit
in the PWid FEC element and PW generalized ID FEC elements MUST be
set. If the C-Bit is not set, the pseudowire MUST NOT be established
and a Label Release MUST be sent with an "Illegal C-Bit" status code
[RFC4447].
The Fragmentation Indicator (Parameter ID = 0x09) is specified in
[RFC4446] and its usage is defined in [RFC4623]. Since fragmentation
is not used in FC PW, the fragmentation indicator parameter MUST be
omitted from the Interface Parameter Sub-TLV.
The Interface MTU Parameter (Parameter ID = 0x01) is specified in
[RFC4447]. Since all FC interfaces have the same MTU, this parameter
MUST be omitted from the Interface Parameter Sub-TLV.
The FCS Retention Indicator (Parameter ID = 0x0A) is specified in
[RFC4720]. Since the CRC treatment defined in this document differs
from one that is specified in [RFC4720], this parameter MUST be
omitted from the Interface Parameter Sub-TLV.
5. Timing Considerations
Correct Fibre Channel link operation requires that the FC link
latency between CE1 and CE2 (refer to Figure 1) be:
o no more than one-half of the R_T_TOV (Receiver Transmitter Timeout
Value, default value: 100 milliseconds) of the attached devices
for Primitive Sequences;
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o no more than one-half of the E_D_TOV (Error Detect Timeout Value,
default value: 2 seconds) of the attached devices for frames; and
o within the R_A_TOV (Resource Allocation Timeout Value, default
value: 10 seconds) of the attached fabric(s), if any. The FC
standards require that the E_D_TOV value for each FC link be set
so that the R_A_TOV value for the fabric is respected when the
worst case latency occurs for each link, see [FC-FS-2].
An FC PW MUST adhere to these three timing requirements and MUST NOT
be used in environments where high or variable latency may cause
these requirements to be violated.
These three timeout values are ordered (R_T_TOV < E_D_TOV < R_A_TOV),
so adherence to one-half of R_T_TOV for all FC PW traffic is
sufficient. See [FC-FS-2] for definitions of the FC timeout values.
The R_T_TOV is used by the FC link initialization protocol. If an FC
PW's latency exceeds one-half R_T_TOV, initialization of the FC link
that is encapsulated by the FC PW may fail, leaving that FC link in a
non-operational state.
The E_D_TOV is used to detect failures of operational FC links. If an
FC PW's latency exceeds the one-half E_D_TOV requirement, the FC link
that is encapsulated by the FC PW may fail. The usual FC response to
such a link failure is to attempt to recover the FC link by
initializing it. That initialization will also fail if the FC PW
latency exceeds one-half R_T_TOV (a tighter requirement).
The R_A_TOV is used to determine when FC communication resources
(e.g., values that identify FC frames) may be reused. If an FC PW's
violation of the one-half E_D_TOV requirement is sufficient to also
cause the FC fabric to violate the R_A_TOV requirement, then FC reuse
of frame identification values after an R_A_TOV timeout may result in
multiple FC frames with the same identification values, causing
incorrect Fibre Channel operation. For example, if two such frames
are swapped between I/O operations, the result may corrupt data in
the I/O operations.
The PING and PING_ACK FC PW control frames defined in Section 6.4.7
of [FC-BB-6] SHOULD be used to measure the current FC pseudowire
latency between the CE devices. If the measured latency violates any
of the timing requirements, then the FC PW PE MUST generate a WAN
Down event as specified in [FC-BB-6].
The WAN Down event causes the PE to continuously send NOS (an FC
primitive sequence) on the native FC link to the FC Port at the other
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end of that link (typically an E_Port on a switch in this case).
This immediately causes the FC link that is carried by the PW to
become non-operational, halting transmission of FC traffic. However,
it is not necessary to tear down the pseudowire itself in this
situation (e.g., destroy the MPLS path set up by LDP).
The Transparent FC-BB initialization state machine in [FC-BB-6]
specifies the protocol used to attempt to recover from a WAN Down
event (i.e., bring the WAN back up). If that protocol brings the WAN
back up, FC traffic will resume and the standard FC link recovery
protocol will bring the encapsulated FC link back up. If the previous
pseudowire was destroyed, attempts will be made to re-establish the
path via LDP as part of recovering from the WAN Down event. If the PW
round-trip latency remains above R_T_TOV, the initialization protocol
for the FC PW will repeatedly time out in attempting to recover from
the WAN Down event, preventing recovery of the FC link carried by the
PW, see [FC-BB-6].
6. Security Considerations
The FC PW is an MPLS pseudowire; for MPLS pseudowire security
considerations, see the security considerations sections of [RFC3985]
and [RFC4385].
The protocols used to implement security in a Fibre Channel fabric
are defined in [FC-SP]. These protocols operate at higher layers of
the FC hierarchy and are transparent to the FC PW.
The FC timing requirements (see Section 5) create an exposure of the
FC PW to inserted latency. Injection of latency sufficient to cause
the round trip time for an FC PW to exceed R_T_TOV (default: 100ms)
may cause the FC PW to fail in an active fashion because the FC link
initialization protocol repeatedly times out. OAM functionality for
deployed FC PWs SHOULD monitor for persistence of this situation and
respond accordingly (e.g., shut down the FC PW in order to avoid
wasting WAN bandwidth on an FC PW whose FC link cannot be
successfully initialized due to excessive latency).
7. Applicability Statement
FC PW allows the transparent transport of FC traffic between Fibre
Channel ports while saving network bandwidth by removing FC Idle
Signals and reducing the number of FC Primitive Sequences.
o The pair of CE devices operates as if they were directly connected
by an FC link. In particular they react to Primitive Sequences on
their local FC links as specified by the FC standards.
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o The FC PW carries only FC data frames, FC Primitive Signals and a
subset of the copies of an FC Primitive Sequence. Idle Primitive
Signals are suppressed, and long streams of the same Primitive
Sequence are reduced over the PW thus saving bandwidth.
o The PW PE MUST generate Idle Primitive Signals to the attached FC
link when there is no other traffic to transmit on the attached FC
link [FC-FS-2].
o The PW PE MUST send Primitive Sequences continuously to the
attached FC port, as required by the FC standards [FC-FS-2].
FC PW traffic should only traverse MPLS networks that are provisioned
based on traffic engineering to provide dedicated bandwidth for FC PW
traffic. The MPLS network should enforce ingress traffic policing so
that delivery of FC PW traffic can be assured. To extend FC across a
network that does not satisfy these requirements, FCIP SHOULD be used
instead of an FC PW, see [RFC3821] and [FC-BB-6].
This document does not provide any mechanisms for protecting an FC PW
against network outages. As a consequence, resilience of the emulated
FC service to such outages is dependent upon the underlying MPLS
network, which should be protected against failures. When a network
outage is detected, the PE SHOULD use a WAN Down event (as specified
in [FC-BB-6]) to convey the PW status to the CE, to enable faster
outage handling.
8. IANA Considerations
IANA is requested to assign a new MPLS Pseudowire (PW) type as
follows:
PW type Description Reference
-------- -------------- ----------
0x001F FC Port Mode RFC XXXX
The above value is suggested as the next available value and has been
reserved for this purpose by IANA.
RFC Editor: Please replace RFC XXXX above with the RFC number of this
document and remove this note.
IANA should reserve the following Pseudowire Interface Parameters
Sub-TLV Types that were tentatively allocated for FC PW and restrict
them to prevent future allocation, citing this RFC as the reference
for that reservation and restriction. These Sub-TLV types were used
for the FC PW Selective Retransmission protocol, which the working
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group has decided to eliminate. This action prevents future use of
these values for other purposes, as there is at least one
implementation of the Selective Retransmission protocol that has been
deployed.
Parameter ID Length Reference
--------- --------- ----------
0x12 4 RFC XXXX
0x13 4 RFC XXXX
0x14 4 RFC XXXX
0x15 4 RFC XXXX
RFC Editor: Please replace RFC XXXX above with the RFC number of this
document and remove this note.
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9. Acknowledgments
Previous versions of this document were authored by Moran Roth, Ronen
Solomon and Munefumi Tsurusawa; their efforts and contributions are
gratefully acknowledged. The authors would like to thank Stewart
Bryant, Elwyn Davies, Steve Hanna, Dave Peterson, Yaakov Stein,
Alexander Vainshtein, and the members of the IESG for helpful
comments on this document.
The protocol specified in this document is intended to be used in
conjunction with the Fibre Channel pseudowire portion of the FC-BB-6
specification developed by INCITS Technical Committee T11. The
authors would like to thank the members of both the IETF and T11
organizations who have supported and contributed to this work.
This document was prepared using 2-Word-v2.0.template.dot.
10. Normative References
[RFC3643] Weber, R., et al, "Fibre Channel (FC) Frame
Encapsulation", RFC 3643, December 2003.
[RFC3985] Bryant, S., et al, "Pseudo Wire Emulation Edge-to-Edge
(PWE3) Architecture", RFC 3985, March 2005.
[RFC4446] Martini, L., "IANA Allocations for Pseudowire Edge to
Edge Emulation (PWE3)", RFC 4446, April 2006.
[RFC4447] Martini, L., et al, "Pseudowire Setup and Maintenance
using the Label Distribution Protocol (LDP)", RFC4447,
April 2006.
[RFC4385] Bryant, S., et al, "Pseudowire Emulation Edge-to-
Edge(PWE3) Control Word for use over an MPLS PSN",
RFC4385, February 2006.
[RFC4623] Malis, A., Townsley, M., "PWE3 Fragmentation and
Reassembly", RFC 4623, August 2006.
[RFC4720] Malis, A., et al, "Pseudowire Emulation Edge-to-Edge
(PWE3) Frame Check Sequence Retention", RFC 4720,
November 2006.
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[FC-BB-6] "Fibre Channel Backbone-6" (FC-BB-6), T11 Project
2159-D, Rev 1.02, October 2010.
RFC Editor: FC-BB-6 is a work in progress. Please treat [FC-BB-6] as a
normative reference to a work in progress, and proceed as follows:
1. Assign an RFC number to this draft and communicate that
number to the authors of this draft, one of whom (David Black)
is the T11 designated liaison to IETF.
2. Place a reference hold on this draft until FC-BB-6 is published
as an ANSI standard.
3. When FC-BB-6 is published as an ANSI standard, the draft authors
will provide an update to the FC-BB-6 reference that includes
an ANSI standard number. Update the FC-BB-6 reference using
that information, remove the reference hold due to FC-BB-6, and
remove this note.
[RFC-2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[FC-FS-2] "Fibre Channel - Framing and Signaling-2 (FC-FS-2)",
ANSI INCITS 424:2007, August 2007.
11. Informative references
[RFC3821] M. Rajogopal, E. Rodriguez, "Fibre Channel over TCP/IP
(FCIP)", RFC 3821, July 2004.
[RFC4717] Martini, L., et al, "Encapsulation Methods for
Transport of Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) over
MPLS Networks", RFC 4717, December 2006.
[T11] INCITS Technical Committee T11, http://www.t11.org,
visited January, 2011.
[FC-SP] "Fibre Channel - Security Protocols" (FC-SP), ANSI
INCITS 426:2007, February 2007.
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Authors' Addresses
David L. Black (ed.)
EMC Corporation
176 South Street
Hopkinton, MA 01748
Phone: +1 (508) 293-7953
Email: david.black@emc.com
Linda Dunbar (ed.)
Huawei Technologies
1700 Alma Drive, Suite 500
Plano, TX 75075, USA
Phone: +1 (972) 543-5849
Email: ldunbar@huawei.com
Moran Roth
Infinera Corporation
169 Java Drive
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
Phone: (408) 572-5200
Email: MRoth@infinera.com
Ronen Solomon
Orckit-Corrigent Systems
126, Yigal Alon st.
Tel Aviv, ISRAEL
Phone: +972-3-6945316
Email: ronens@corrigent.com
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