A ClearPath Forward fabric is conceptually a single mesh. However, technically it is made up of many components. In addition to the Interconnect, the ClearPath Forward fabric includes the following individual networks.
ClearPath Forward Management LAN
A Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) LAN for managing the enterprise partition platforms and partitions within the fabric. It enables the Fabric Management Platform to communicate with an enterprise partition platform or partition. It does not allow partitions and platforms to communicate with each other, only with the Fabric Management Platform.
Customer corporate LAN (sometimes called the public LAN)
The enterprise’s Ethernet intranet. It allows the enterprise to communicate with each enterprise partition platform, with the Fabric Management Platform, and with other computers in your enterprise. Depending on its purpose, you can choose whether or not to attach a given partition to the corporate LAN.
These networks are separate from each other and from the Interconnect and do not allow interconnections among them. This separation enables Unisys to apply specific security to the different networks, which allows the fabric to be more effectively secured.
Note: Some earlier levels of the fabric supported the Host Data LAN (HD LAN). This was an internal Ethernet LAN that routed Interconnect traffic within the platform to Windows partitions and served as a gateway for Windows partitions to communicate with partitions residing on different enterprise partition platforms. The HD LAN was deprecated in Release 3.1, and is removed in Release 4.0.