The router comes in two flavors, the older SCSI-FC distancing router that bridges the distance between a SCSI HBA and a SCSI peripheral, such as a HASS (now obsolete high availability storage enclosure Jamaica cabinet) and the latest SCSI-FC Fabric Router.

The fabric version of the router must be ordered as product A5814 with option #003. If you don’t order it this way you will receive the older router that is not upgradeable to the fabric router.

The fabric router allows customers who choose to continue using the MPE/iX K-Class systems a connectivity solution to HP’s newest high availability storage arrays, such as the VA7100, VA7110, XP128 and HP’s fastest and largest enterprise storage solution, the HP SureStore E Storage Array XP1024 which all require fibre channel connections.

firmware information

The router comes in two flavors that are NOT interchangeable or upgradeable from one version to the other.

scsi-fc fabric router

SCSI-FC Fabric router’s latest version 8.01.0C corrects a problem found when the router is introduced to a SAN where native FC MPE/iX or HP-UX HBA’s are present.

Problem: When the router is powered up, it will interrogate the SAN looking for server FC HBA for the router to logon so that the router can notify all “viewable” server HBAs of its presence. If an FC server HBA fails to allow a logon within the FC specification time limit the router will hang and flash an error with its status lights.

Fix: The 8.01.0C version of firmware allows for a timeout of a SAN logon and will proceed with its normal behavior. HP-UX FC and the port to MPE/iX are the only operating systems to cause the router hang in this environment.

proceed to download page

scsi-fc bridge

This version of the router is the distancing solution where two routers are connected end-to-end to allow FC distances for SCSI HBAs to SCSI peripherals. This earlier version of the router also allowed basic connection to an XP512 (No support of FC hub or FC switches) for the few customers that used this version of the router to connect directly to an XP512.

Problem: MPE/iX was changed to send a port mode change and status check for all storage arrays. The older version of the firmware (7.62) was not designed to handle this status return from the array and would hang.

Fix: The version 7.64 was enhanced to pass through this status to MPE/iX without hanging.

proceed to download page