Which method does FCIP use to enable connectivity of geographically distributed Fibre Channel SANs over IP?

Routing involves layer-3 forwarding decisions on packets, which FCIP does not perform on FC frames - FCIP simply encapsulates and forwards them through a preconfigured point-to-point IP tunnel without inspecting FC addressing.

FCIP (Fibre Channel over IP) operates by creating IP-based tunnels between FCIP-capable endpoints such as gateway devices or MDS switches, encapsulating entire Fibre Channel frames inside TCP/IP packets for transit across a WAN. The tunnel makes the two remote FC fabrics appear as a single logical fabric, preserving FC semantics end-to-end without modifying the underlying FC protocol. This encapsulation-in-tunnel approach is the defining technical characteristic that distinguishes FCIP from other FC-over-IP methods.

Handshaking is a connection-establishment negotiation process, not a method for providing ongoing SAN-to-SAN connectivity across distributed geographic locations.

Transporting is a generic term that does not identify the specific technical mechanism FCIP uses; tunneling precisely describes the encapsulation of one protocol inside another for transparent transit.