> # Information About FICON

> The Cisco MDS 9000 Family supports the Fibre Channel Protocol (FCP), FICON, iSCSI, and FCIP capabilities within a single, high-availability platform.

> The FICON feature is not supported on:

> - Cisco MDS 9120 switches
> - Cisco MDS 9124 switches
> - Cisco MDS 9140 switches
> - The 32-port Fibre Channel switching module
> - Cisco Fabric Switch for HP c-Class BladeSystem
> - Cisco Fabric Switch for IBM BladeSystem

> FCP and FICON are different FC4 protocols and their traffic is independent of each other. Devices using these protocols should be isolated using VSANs.

> The fabric binding feature helps prevent unauthorized switches from joining the fabric or disrupting current fabric operations (refer to the Cisco MDS 9000 Family NX-OS Security Configuration Guide). The Registered Link Incident Report (RLIR) application provides a method for a switch port to send an LIR to a registered Nx port.

> This section includes the following topics:

> - FICON Requirements
> - Cisco MDS-Specific FICON Advantages
> - FICON Cascading
> - FICON VSAN Prerequisites
> - FICON Port Numbering
> - Default FICON Port Numbering Scheme
> - Port Addresses
> - Implemented and Unimplemented Port Addresses
> - About the Reserved FICON Port Numbering Scheme
> - Installed and Uninstalled Ports
> - About Port Numbers for FCIP and PortChannel
> - FC ID Allocation
> - About Enabling FICON on a VSAN
> - FICON Information Refresh
> - About FICON Device Allegiance
> - Automatically Saving the Running Configuration
> - Port Prohibiting
> - About RLIR
> - Port Swapping
> - FICON Tape Acceleration
> - CUP In-Band Management

> Copyright 2010-2013, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.