Chapter 11. Advanced Copy Services 553
During the VLAN configuration for each IP address, the VLAN settings for the local and 
failover ports on two nodes of an I/O Group can differ. To avoid any service disruption, 
switches must be configured so that the failover VLANs are configured on the local switch 
ports and the failover of IP addresses from a failing node to a surviving node succeeds. If 
failover VLANs are not configured on the local switch ports, there are no paths to the IBM 
Spectrum Virtualize system nodes during a node failure and the replication fails.
Consider the following requirements and procedures when implementing VLAN tagging:
/SM590000VLAN tagging is supported for IP partnership traffic between two systems.
/SM590000VLAN provides network traffic separation at the layer 2 level for Ethernet transport.
/SM590000VLAN tagging by default is disabled for any IP address of a node port. You can use the CLI 
or GUI to optionally set the VLAN ID for port IPs on both systems in the IP partnership.
/SM590000When a VLAN ID is configured for the port IP addresses that are used in remote copy port 
groups, appropriate VLAN settings on the Ethernet network must also be configured to 
prevent connectivity issues.
Setting VLAN tags for a port is disruptive. Therefore, VLAN tagging requires that you stop the 
partnership first before you configure VLAN tags. Restart the partnership after the 
configuration is complete.
11.8.5  IP partnership and terminology
The IP partnership terminology and abbreviations that are used are listed in Table 11-12.
Table 11-12   Terminology for IP partnership
IP partnership terminology Description 
Remote copy group or Remote copy port group The fo llowing numbers group a set of IP addresses that are 
connected to the same physical link. Therefore, only IP 
addresses that are part of the same remote copy group can 
form remote copy connections with the partner system: 
/SM5900000 – Ports that are not configured for remote copy
/SM5900001 – Ports that belong to remote copy port group 1 
/SM5900002 – Ports that belong to remote copy port group 2 
Each IP address can be shared for iSCSI host attach and 
remote copy functionality. Therefore, appropriate settings must 
be applied to each IP address. 
IP partnership Two systems that are partnered to perform remote copy over 
native IP links.
FC partnership Two systems that are partnered to perform remote copy over 
native Fibre Channel links.
Failover Failure of a node within an I/O group causes the volume access 
to go through the surviving node. The IP addresses fail over to 
the surviving node in the I/O group. When the configuration 
node of the system fails, management IPs also fail over to an 
alternative node.
Failback When the failed node rejoins the system, all failed over IP 
addresses are failed back from the surviving node to the 
rejoined node, and volume access is restored through 
this node.
linkbandwidthmbits Aggregate bandwidth of all physical links between two sites 
in Mbps.