BCFP in A Nutshell Study Guide For Exam 143-060 8gbit

BCFP in a Nutshell
Study Guide for

Exam 143-060
Exam Preparation Materials
Revision August 2008
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Revision: August, 2008
2008 Brocade Communications 1
BCFP in a Nutshell 8 Gbit/sec Edition
Objective: The BCFP Nutshell guide is designed to help you prepare for the BCFP certification, exam number
143-060.
Audience: The BCFP Nutshell self-study guide is intended for those who have successfully completed the
CFP 270 Brocade 8 Gbit/sec Introduction to Administration and Theory and/or the CFP 271 Brocade
8 Gbit/sec Advanced Theory and Administration courses, and who wish to undertake self-study or review
activities before taking the actual BCFP certification exam.
How to benefit from the BCFP guide: To benefit from the BCFP guide we strongly recommend you have
successfully completed the CFP 270 Brocade 8 Gbit/sec Introduction to Administration and Theory and/or the
CFP 271 Brocade 8 Gbit/sec Advanced Theory and Administration courses. The BCFP guide is not intended as
a substitute for classroom training or hands-on time with Brocade products.
How to make the most of the BCFP guide: The BCFP guide summarizes the key topics on the BCFP exam for
you in an easy to use format. It is organized closely around the exam objectives. Use the Table of Contents,
List of Tables and List of Figures to quickly jump to a given area. We also suggest this guide be used in
conjunction with our free online knowledge assessment test - CFP 272 BCFP Knowledge Assessment.
We hope you find this useful in your journey towards BCFP Certification, and we welcome your feedback by
emailing jcannata@brocade.com.
Helen Lautenschlager Joe Cannata
Director of Education Solutions Certification Manager
2 2008 Brocade Communications

Table of Contents
BCFP in a Nutshell 8 Gbit/sec Edition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1 - Hardware And Software Product Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Describe Brocade Hardware and Software Product Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Brocade Entry-level Switches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
DCX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
ICLs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
48000. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Supported Blades for Chassis-based Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Brocade USD-X. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Access Gateway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Supported Platforms for Fibre Channel Routing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Introduction to Adaptive Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Top Talkers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Traffic Isolation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Ingress Rate Limiting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
QoS: SID/DID traffic prioritization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2 - Installation and Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Install and Configure a New Brocade Product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Initial Configuration Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Useful Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Setting the Fabric-Wide Clock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Brocade Management Interfaces and Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Password Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Authentication and Authorization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Initial Security Configuration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Switch/FRU Status. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
File Transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Parameters Not Reset When Resetting Switch Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Archiving Switch Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Restoring Switch Configuration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Brocade Firmware Downloads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Time-based Licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Fabric Interoperability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3 - Fibre Channel Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Basic Fibre Channel Theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Fibre Channel Networking Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Classes of Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Fibre Channel Frame Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Port Types. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Fabric Initialization Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Fabric Generic Services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Well-Known Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
NPIV (N_Port ID Virtualization) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Shared Area Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

4 - Layer 2/Layer 3 Routing and Extension Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Implementation Requirements for Extended Fabric Solutions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Buffer to Buffer Credit Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
E_Port Credit Recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Trunking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
EX_Port Frame Trunking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
F_Port Trunking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Extended Fabrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Configure and Verify an FCIP Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Creating an FCIP Tunnel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
IPv6 Support. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
IPSec. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Tape Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Routing in a Fabric. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Interop Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
FC-to-FC Routing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
5 - Troubleshooting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Troubleshooting Basic Switch Connectivity Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Port Errors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
In-order Delivery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Operational States of Brocade Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Performance Issues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Causes for Segmentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
6 - Administration and Maintenance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Management Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Web Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
ESCM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
EFCM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Fabric Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Implementing Zoning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Zoning Best Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Zoning Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Zoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Reference Material and Information Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Taking the Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

List of Tables
The Brocade 300 and 200E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
The Brocade 5100 and 5000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
The Brocade 5300 and 4900 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
The Brocade DCX and 48000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Supported Blades for Chassis-based Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Useful Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Classes of Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
When to Use EFCM or Fabric Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

List of Figures
Brocade Entry-level Switches ..................................................................................................................................................7
Brocade DCX .............................................................................................................................................................................9
Example ICL Cabling .............................................................................................................................................................. 10
Brocade 48000 ..................................................................................................................................................................... 11
Brocade USD-X ...................................................................................................................................................................... 13
Brocade 300 .......................................................................................................................................................................... 14
FC-FC Routing ........................................................................................................................................................................ 15
Fibre Channel Networking Model ......................................................................................................................................... 28
FC Frame Format ................................................................................................................................................................... 30
Port Types .............................................................................................................................................................................. 31
Fabric Initialization Process .................................................................................................................................................. 32
NPIV ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 34
Shared Area Numbers ........................................................................................................................................................... 35
E_Port Credit Recovery ......................................................................................................................................................... 38
Supported Routing Configurations ....................................................................................................................................... 45
Causes for Segmentation ..................................................................................................................................................... 47
Zoning Database Size ........................................................................................................................................................... 52
NDA Agreement ..................................................................................................................................................................... 54
Sample Question ................................................................................................................................................................... 55
Example Exam Score ............................................................................................................................................................. 56
1 - Hardware And Software Product Features
Describe Brocade Hardware and Software Product Features
Brocade Entry-level Switches
Figure 1: Brocade Entry-level Switches
Table 1: The Brocade 300 and 200E
Brocade 300 Brocade 200E
24 FC Ports 16 FC Ports
1, 2, 4 and 8 Gbit/sec FC port speed supported 1, 2 and 4 Gbit/sec FC port speed supported
Ports on Demand (8-port increment) Ports on Demand (4-port increment)
Trunk groups (8-port) Trunk groups (4-port)
USB port USB port - not available
1U form factor 1U form factor
OneGoldenEye2 ASIC OneGoldenEyeASIC

Table 2: The Brocade 5100 and 5000
Table 3: The Brocade 5300 and 4900
Brocade 5100 Brocade 5000
40 FC Ports(8-port trunk groups) 32 FC Ports (8-porttrunk groups)
1, 2, 4 and 8 Gbit/sec FC port speed 1, 2 and 4 Gbit/sec FC port speed
Integrated Routing (EX_Ports) Available per port Not available
Two 125 W Power Supply/Fan FRUs Two 300 W Power Supply/Fan FRUs
OneCondor2 ASIC OneCondor ASIC

Brocade 5300 Brocade 4900
80 FC Ports 64 FC Ports
1, 2, 4 and 8 Gbit/sec FC port speed supported 1, 2 and 4 Gbit/sec FC port speed supported
Support for FCR Availableper port Support for FCR Not Available
Two 300W Power Supplies Two 300W Power Supplies
Three Fan FRUs ThreeFan FRUs
Nine GoldenEye2 ASICs Six Condor ASICs

DCX
Figure 2: Brocade DCX
12 slot chassis - 2 CP (6, 7), 2 Core (5, 8), 8 port blades (1-4, 9-12)
Slots are keyed so blades can not be installed into the wrong slot
Core frame routing has been removed from CP blade, functionally has been moved to the Core (CR8) blade
16/32/48 port blades using the Condor2 ASIC
4 - Power Supplies
- 2000W @ 220VAC
- 1000W @ 110VAC
3 Blowers - FRU
Air intake panel below power supply bay
Blowers and power supplies plug directly into backplane
2 WWN cards - dual WWN boards behind logo plate
Chassis size identical to current 48000
Fits in standard 19" rack
512 Gbit/sec of bandwidth per slot (256 Gbit/sec each direction)
SFPs - 4 and 8 Gbit/sec SFPs used on blades that contain the Condor2 ASIC must be Brocade branded
- 8G SFPs support 2, 4 and 8 Gbit/sec speeds
- 4G SFPs support 1, 2 and 4 Gbit/sec speeds
ICLs
Figure 3: Example ICL Cabling
ICL connections can only be used to connect two DCX chassis together
ICL license is required on each DCX
ICL ports must be re-initialized after the ICL license is applied
ICL - 512 Gbit/sec total bandwidth (1 Tbit/sec bidirectional)
ICL ports are located on the CR8 blade only
2 Core blades x 32 ports per blade x 8 Gbit/sec per port = 512 Gbit/sec total bandwidth between two DCX
chassis
2 connector ports per blade; Each connector port aggregates 16 ICL ports (128 Gbit/sec bandwidth per
cable)
Most properties are static. No portcfg configuration allowed on these ports:
- Speed is locked at 8 Gbit/sec
- Trunking enabled
- Credit sharing is on
- Support for QoS
- No long distance support
48000
Figure 4: Brocade 48000
4, 8 and 10 Gbit/sec performance from port cards and CP cards based on the Condor, Condor2 and Egret
ASICs
16, 32, 48 ports per port card; up to 384 user ports total
Table 4: The Brocade DCX and 48000
DCX 48000
12 bladeslots 10 bladeslots
8 port blades which run at 1, 2, 4 and 8 Gbit/sec
10 Gbit/sec port blades
4 and 8 Gbit/sec portblades which run at 1, 2, 4 and 8
Gbit/sec
10 Gbit/sec port blades
512 Gbit/sec bi-directional bandwidth per slot 128 Gbit/sec bi-directional bandwidth per slot
384 user ports (448 total ports) 384 user ports
Corerouting / CP functions are on different blades Corerouting / CP functions areon thesame blades
Dual WWN cards SingleWWN card

Supported Blades for Chassis-based Products
Table 5: Supported Blades for Chassis-based Products
Brocade USD-X
Figure 5: Brocade USD-X
Supports Fibre Channel, FICON, ESCON, Bus-and-Tag, or mixed environment systems and a variety of
network interfaces, including:
- OC-3 ATM
- 10/100 and Gigabit Ethernet
Delivers industry-leading throughput over thousands of miles
Access Gateway
Figure 6: Brocade 300
Brocade Access Gateway is a Brocade Fabric OS feature that enables:
Seamless connectivity to any SAN fabric
Enhanced scalability
Simplified manageability
The Access Gateway provides the following features:
F_Port to N_Port mapping (when using a Brocade 300 in default Access Gateway (AG) mode, the AG will
predefine and preconfigure F_Port to N_Port mappings)
F_Port failover and failback
N_Port grouping
Advanced Device Security (ADS)
N_Port trunking /edge switch F_Port trunking
Cascading
Supported Platforms for Fibre Channel Routing
Figure 7: FC-FC Routing
Fibre Channel routing is supported on the following platforms:
Brocade DCX (FC8-16, FC8-32, FC8-48, or FR4-18i blade)
Brocade 5100 switch
Brocade 5300 switch
Brocade 7500 switch
Brocade 48000 Director with an FR4-18i blade
Introduction to Adaptive Networking
Adaptive Networking is a suite of tools and capabilities that enable you to ensure optimized behavior in the
SAN. In the event of congestion, the Adaptive Networking features can maximize the fabric behavior and
provide necessary bandwidth for administratively defined high-priority, mission-critical applications and
connections.
Adaptive Networking is not a single feature or a separate product, rather Adaptive Networking is an umbrella
term encompassing:
Quality of Service (QoS)
- Allocates bandwidth by priority if congestion occurs
Traffic Management
- Assigns data flows to a dedicated physical link (TI Zones)
- Sets a bandwidth limit for a data flow (Ingress Rate Limiting)
Fabric Dynamic Profiling (Top Talker)
- Uses internal monitoring to measure bandwidth and queue utilization
- Reports information and can be utilized to implement future services
Top Talkers
The Top Talkers feature provides real-time information about the top n bandwidth-consuming flows from a
set of a large number of flows passing through a specific port in the network. You can use Top Talkers to
identify the SID/DID pairs that consume the most bandwidth and can then configure them with certain QoS
attributes so they get proper priority.
Requires the APM license to be installed on all switches
Supported on the Brocade 300, 4100, 4900, 5000, 5100, 5300, 7500, 7600, 48000 and DCX
Not available on Bloom-based or GoldenEye-based switches
VE, EX, VEX and M_Ports (mirror ports) are not supported
Supports NPIV-attached devices
Top Talkers can be configured in two modes:
- Port Mode: enabled on an F_Port to measure the traffic originating from that F_Port and flowing to
different destinations
- Fabric Mode: enabled on all E_Ports in the fabric to measure the data rate of all the possible flows
in the fabric (ingress E_Port traffic only)
In Fabric Mode, Top Talker monitors can determine the top n bandwidth users on a given switch
Can be configured in Port Mode only, or Fabric Mode only, not both simultaneously
Traffic Isolation
The Traffic Isolation feature allows you to control the flow of interswitch traffic by creating a dedicated path for
traffic flowing from a specific set of source ports (N_Ports). For example, you might use Traffic Isolation for the
following scenarios:
To dedicate an ISL to high priority, host-to-target traffic.
To force high volume, low priority traffic onto a given ISL to limit the effect on the fabric of this high traffic
pattern.onfigure them with certain QoS attributes so they get proper priority
To ensure that requests and responses of FCIP-based applications such as tape pipelining use the same
VE_Port tunnel across a MetaSAN
Traffic isolation is implemented using a special zone, called a Traffic Isolation zone (TI zone). A TI zone
indicates the set of N_Ports and E_Ports to be used for a specific traffic flow. When a TI zone is activated, the
fabric attempts to isolate all inter-switch traffic entering from a member of the zone to only those E_Ports that
have been included in the zone. The fabric also attempts to exclude traffic not in the TI zone from using
E_Ports within that TI zone.
Fabric OS v6.0 introduced the concept of Traffic Isolation zones:
Can create a dedicated route
Do not modify the routing table
Are implemented across the entire data path from a single location
Use a special zoning command, and are intended to control the routing of frames between zone members,
not to control access to devices
If paths within a TI zone go offline, the TI zone failover setting determines the resulting behavior
If failover is enabled and the TI zoned route fails:
- Traffic will be moved to another E_Port in the same TI zone, if one is available
- If there are no other E_Ports available in that TI zone, traffic will be moved to an E_Port outside the
TI zone, if available
- When a failed TI zoned route is restored, traffic will be automatically failed back to the original route
If failover is disabled and the TI zoned route fails:
- Non-TI zoned traffic will never use the dedicated path
- Traffic for that TI zone halts
Using the default settings when creating a TI zone will activate the zone, with failover enabled
Ingress Rate Limiting
Ingress rate limiting is a licensed feature that restricts the speed of traffic from a particular device to the
switch port. Use ingress rate limiting for the following situations:
To reduce existing congestion in the network or proactively avoid congestion
To enable you to offer flexible bandwidth limit services based on requirements
To enable more important devices to use the network bandwidth during specific services, such as network
backup
To limit the traffic, you set the maximum speed at which the traffic can flow through a particular F_Port or
FL_Port. For example, if you set the rate limit at 4 Gbit/sec, then traffic from a particular device is limited to a
maximum of 4 Gbit/sec.
Ingress Rate Limiting can be configured on any 8 Gbit/sec capable port with an Adaptive Networking
license installed
A feature available only on 8 Gbit/sec platforms/blades
Allows the ASIC to delay the return of BB credits to the external device by throttling back the ingress port
speed, thereby limiting the throughput on the ingress side of the port
Ingress Rate Limiting is only supported for F/FL_Ports
It is not supported for E/EX_Ports
Ingress Rate Limiting is only available on 8 Gbit/sec capable ports, which can be running at any supported
speed
Ingress Rate Limiting is designed to help alleviate choke points in the fabric caused by slow drain devices,
congested ISLs, etc.
QoS: SID/DID traffic prioritization
QoS or SID/DID traffic prioritization is a licensed feature that allows you to categorize the traffic flow between
a given host and target as having a high, medium or low priority. For example, you could assign online
transaction processing (OLTP) to high priority and backup traffic to low priority.
All flows without QoS prioritization are considered medium priority. High, medium, and low priority flows are
allocated to different virtual channels (VCs). High priority flows receive more VCs than medium priority flows,
which receive more VCs than low priority flows. You assign high or low priority (QoS level) using a QoS zone. A
QoS zone is a special zone that indicates the priority of the traffic flow between a given host/target pair.
QoS traffic prioritization is a licensed feature. An Adaptive Networking license must be installed on every
switch that is in the path between a given configured device pair.
Note the following:
To distinguish QoS zones from normal WWN zones, special prefixes are used in the zone names:
- QOSH_ to set high priority
- QOSL_ to set low priority
VCs are assigned using a round robin method
Default setting is medium priority, and is used when no QoS zones are specified, or when QoS cannot be
enforced
Zones must be created using WWN notation
Prefixes are not case sensitive
If a host and target are included in two or more QoS zones with different priorities, the zone with the lowest
priority takes precedence. For example, if an effective zone configuration has QOSH_z1 (H,T) and QOSL_z2
(H,T), the traffic flow between H and T will be of low QoS priority. Additionally, if QOSH_z1 (H,T) overlaps
with a domain,port zone at the H port, the traffic flow between H and T is dropped to medium priority and
the H port is marked as a session-based soft zoning port
Traffic prioritization is enforced on the egress ports only, not on the ingress ports
Traffic prioritization is not supported on 10 Gbit/sec ISLs
Traffic prioritization is not supported on mirrored ports
All switches in the fabric must be running Fabric OS v6.0.0 or later
2 - Installation and Configuration
Install and Configure a New Brocade Product
Initial Configuration Notes
fabric.ops parameters must be the same on all switches that participate in a fabric
PID format is one of the fabric.ops parameters
Switch parameters are set with the configure command
- Domain ID - The domain number uniquely identifies a switch in a fabric. This value is automatically
assigned by the fabric. The range of valid values varies depending on the switch model and other
system parameter settings
- Insistent domain ID (IDID) - Allows the switch to insist on a specific domain ID before joining a fab-
ric. This feature guarantees that a switch operates only with its preassigned domain ID
RS232 ports on a Director are used for serial & modem connections
IP addresses should be set with a serial connection before plugging in the Ethernet cable or use an
Ethernet crossover cable
Useful Commands
Use fcping command to perform a zoning check between the source and destination
Use nsshow command to display local NS information about devices connected to this switch
Use fabricshow command to display information about switches in the fabric
Use nszonemember command to display information about all the online devices zoned with the given
device
Table 6: Useful Commands
Setting the Fabric-Wide Clock
The principal switch maintains time for an entire fabric
Subordinate switches synchronize time from the principal
Use the tsclockserver command to instruct the principal switch to synchronize time with an NTP
server
Specify an IP address of an NTP server
Specify LOCL to stop NTP synchronization (LOCL must be uppercase)
When not using NTP, use the date command to manually set the switch date and time
Brocade Management Interfaces and Tools
Command Line Interface
- Serial Communication (HyperTerm or tip)
- Telnet (port 23)
- SSHv2 (port 22)
SMI-S
Fabric Manager
EFCM
Web Tools
- HTTP
- HTTPS
Secure access implementations that involve a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) include
three parts:
- Part 1 Certificate Signing Request (CSR) management
- Part 2 Certificate Authority (CA) management
- Part 3 Import and configure certificates
SNMP Protocol
- You can configure for the automatic transmission of SNMP information to management stations
- SNMPv3 and SNMPv1 are supported
- The configuration process involves configuring the SNMP agent and configuring SNMP traps
- SNMPv3 supports thee security levels:
No authentication and no privacy Username is not hashed and data is not encrypted
Authentication and no privacy Username is hashed but data is not encrypted
Authentication and privacy Username is hashed and data is encrypted
Password Policies
Configurable password policies:
Password strength
Password history
Password expiration
Account lockout
Password rules are enforced only when defining new passwords. Passwords that have already been defined
will not be checked for policy compliance. Set password rules with passwdcfg --set command.
Set a password strength policy by specifying the minimum number of:
Lowercase letters -lowercase
Uppercase letters -uppercase
Digits (0-9) -digits
Punctuation characters -punctuation
Minimum length -minlength
Authentication and Authorization
Fabric OS v6.0.0 and later supports:
- The use of both the local user database and the RADIUS service at the same time
- The local user database and LDAP using Microsofts Active Directory in Windows at the same time
Use the userconfig command to manage accounts:
userconfig --show
userconfig --change
userconfig --add
userconfig -delete
User-defined accounts assist in tracking who did what, when. Enable enhanced change tracking with
trackchangesset 1
RADIUS and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) configuration of the switch is controlled by the
aaaconfig command
Fabric OS v6.1 and later allows mapping of LDAP Active Directory server roles to Fabric OS RBAC roles
- Creates an alias for a customer-defined group
- Allows a user belonging to that group to login in to the switch with the permissions associated with
the mapped switch role
- Supports one-to-one role mapping only
- Command fails if you attempt to map an already mapped Active Directory server role
To implement a highly available solution that provides redundancy and minimizes the effect of network
outages, implement multiple LDAP servers on the network, configure all switches to authenticate with all
LDAP servers, and configure all switches to use local database as secondary authentication
Initial Security Configuration
Base Fabric OS v5.3 or higher supports the following Access Control List (ACL) security policies:
Fabric Configuration Server (FCS): Restricts which switch(es) can be used to change the configuration of
the fabric
Switch Connection Control (SCC): Restricts which switches can join a fabric
Device Connection Control (DCC): Restricts which Fibre Channel devices can connect to which Fibre
Channel switch ports
Advanced Device Security (ADS): Policy based Device Connection Control (DCC) used to restrict device
access on the Access Gateway
Additional security policies:
IP Filter Policy (IPFILTER): Filters IP management interface traffic
Fabric Element Authentication Policy (AUTH): Authenticates switch-switch and/or device-switch
connections
Password database and user policy (PWD): Enables users and passwords configured on one switch to be
distributed to other switches
ACL Database Distribution (fddcfg/fabwideset):
Each switch can be set to Accept or Reject individual security policies (FCS/SCC/DCC/IPFILTER/PWD/
AUTH)
All policies can be manually distributed to fabric switches
The PWD, IPFILTER, FCS, AUTH policies can only be manually distributed
Optionally, the Fabric-Wide Consistency policy can distribute the SCC and DCC policies automatically
Switch/FRU Status
Some of the commands used are:
switchshow Status of switch
hashow Status of CPs and failover
slotshow Status of blades
psshow Status of power supplies
tempshow Status of temperature sensors
Use switchshow to display switch and port status information. Information might vary by switch model: for
instance, number of ports and domain ID values. The output displays switch summary information followed by
port summary information. Switch summary information is as follows:
switchName The switchs symbolic name
switchType The switchs model and revision numbers
switchState The switchs state: online, offline, testing, or faulty
switchMode The switchs operation mode: native, interop, or Access Gateway,
McDATA Open Fabric, McDATA Fabric
switchRole The switchs role: principal, subordinate, or disabled
switchDomain The switchs domain ID: 1-239
switchId The switchs embedded port D_ID
switchWwn The switchs World Wide Name (WWN)
switchBeacon The switchs beaconing state (on or off)
bladeBeacon The blades beaconing state (on or off)
zoning The name of the active zone displays in parenthesis
FC Router The FC Routers state (on or off)
FC Router BB Fabric ID The backbone fabric ID for FC routing
File Transfer
Brocade supports a couple of options for transferring files during:
Configuration uploads and downloads
Firmware downloads
Gathering supportsave data
Brocade supports the following methods for file transfer:
USB - Must be supported for the switch (8 Gbit/sec switches)
FTP
SCP
Parameters Not Reset When Resetting Switch Configuration
When a configdefault is issued, none of these are reset to defaults:
IP address
MAC address
Subnet mask
IP gateway
License keys
SNMP parameters
System name
WWN
Zone configuration
Archiving Switch Configuration
The configupload command saves the switch configuration as an ASCII text file
Can use FTP, SCP or USB to save file
Perform this anytime before and after the configuration changes:
- Zoning or Fabric Watch is modified
- License keys are added
- New switch is added to the fabric
- Changes are made to switch configuration
- Remove from FTP server to a secure location for security reasons
Ways to perform
- CLI
- Web Tools
- Fabric Manager
Restoring Switch Configuration
The configdownload command downloads the saved configuration file to the switch
When to perform:
- Switch replacement
- Restore switch settings
- Replicate Fabric Watch profiles
- Restore SNMP settings
- Restore zoning
Boot parameters are not restored (switch name, IP address, etc.)
Brocade Firmware Downloads
Firmware-related commands include:
firmwaredownloadstatus Real-time status of a firmware download
firmwarecommit Copy firmware from the primary partition to the secondary partition (no reboot)
firmwarerestore Copy firmware from the secondary partition to the primary partition (reboot occurs)
firmwareshow Display the firmware in both partitions of all CP Cards and any AP blades
Brocade supports the following methods for file transfer during firmware downloads:
USB - Must be supported for the switch (8 Gbit/sec switches)
FTP
SCP
Firmware can be downloaded to an M-Series product by:
Serial Console
Element Manager
EFCM Group Manager
EFCM Basic (not Mi10k)
Mi10K can use CLI
The firmware download process in general is identical for both the DCX and 48000:
firmwaredownload command is entered on Active CP
Firmware is downloaded to Standby CP and applied to secondary partition
Standby CP reboots
Failover causes Active and Standby CPs to reverse roles
Firmware is downloaded to new Standby CP
New Standby CP reboots
New Active CP and New Standby CP commit firmware
Time-based Licensing
Fabric OS v6.1 adds support for time-based licensing
Provides access to certain licensed features for 45 days from the creation of the license
Limited to these features: Full Fabric (E_Port), Extended Fabrics, ISL Trunking, FCIP Services, and
Advanced Performance Monitoring
Up to 2 time-based licenses per feature, per chassis
Five days before the time-based license expires, hourly RASlog messages will be generated
When a time-based license expires, features will continue to work until a switch/port offline event occurs
Fabric Interoperability
Fabric OS v6.0 and higher supports three fabric interop settings:
Interopmode 0 (Brocade Native Mode)
- Default setting, all units ship in this mode
- Should ALWAYS be used for pure Fabric OS fabrics
Interopmode 1 (no longer available)
Interopmode 2 (McDATA Fabric Mode)
- Ideal option for seamlessly adding Fabric OS products to M-EOS fabrics in McDATA Fabric Mode
- Only supports connections to M-Series products no other vendors
- Supports zoning from both B-series and M-Series switches
- Requires a domain ID 96-127 be used
Interopmode 3 (McDATA Open Fabric Mode)
- Ideal option for adding Fabric OS products to M-EOS fabrics in Open Fabric Mode
- Only supports connections to M-Series products no other vendors
- Zoning can only be done through M-EOS switches
- Only WWN zoning is supported
- Requires a domain ID 96-127 be used
3 - Fibre Channel Theory
Basic Fibre Channel Theory
Fibre Channel Networking Model
Figure 8: Fibre Channel Networking Model
The FC-0 and FC-1 layers specify physical and data link functions needed to physically send data from one
port to another
FC-0 specifications include information about feeds and speeds
FC-1 contains specifications for 1, 2, 4 and 8 Gbit/sec 8b/10b encoding, ordered set and link control
communication functions. 10 Gbit/sec communication uses 64b/66b encoding
FC-2 specifies content and structure of information along with how to control and manage information
delivery. This layer contains basic rules needed for sending data across the network. This includes: (1) how
to divide the data into frames, (2) how much data should be sent at one time before sending more (flow
control), and (3) where the frame should go. It also includes Classes of Services, which define different
implementations that can be selected depending on the application
FC-3 defines advanced features such as striping (to transmit one data unit across multiple links) and
multicast (to transmit a single transmission to multiple destinations). So, while the FC-2 level concerns
itself with the definition of functions with a single port, the FC-3 level deals with functions that span
multiple ports
FC-4 provides mapping of Fibre Channel capabilities to pre-existing protocols, such as IP or SCSI, or ATM,
etc.
Classes of Service
Table 7: Classes of Service
Fibre Channel associates a set of delivery characteristics into what is called a Class of Service. The
characteristics relate to the type of connection between the ports, confirmation of delivery, flow control
mechanisms and how errors are handled
Class-1 is a connection-oriented circuit that dedicates 100% of the bandwidth between the sending and
receiving ports. It also provides for a confirmation of delivery (ACK)
Class-2 is a connectionless class with an acknowledgement (confirmation of delivery). No bandwidth is
allocated or guaranteed. IP uses this class. Uses both Buffer-to-Buffer (BB) credits and End-to-End (EE)
credits for flow control
Class-3 is a connectionless class with out an acknowledgement (confirmation of delivery). No bandwidth is
allocated of guaranteed. FCP uses this class. Uses Buffer-to-Buffer (BB) credits for flow control, does not
use End-to-End (EE) credits
Class-4 is a connection-oriented class that uses virtual circuits and confirmation of delivery. Unlike Class-1
that reserves the entire bandwidth, Class-4 can allocate a requested amount of bandwidth
Class-6 is a variation of Class-1 that provides a one-to-many multicast service with a confirmation of
delivery. Avionics uses this class
Class-F is a connectionless class with acknowledgements (confirmation of delivery). between two switches
Note: Brocade supports Class-2, Class-3, and Class-F only
Fibre Channel Frame Format
Figure 9: FC Frame Format
A frame has a header and may have a payload. The header contains control and addressing information asso-
ciated with the frame. The payload contains the information being transported by the frame on behalf of the
higher level service or FC-4 upper level protocol. The Fibre Channel standards allow bytes from the payload to
be used for optional headers. There are many different payload formats, based on the protocol. The TYPE field
(Word 2, bits 31- 24) tells which format to use. The Routing Control bits (Word 0, bits 31-24) determine how to
interpret the payload.
Port Types
Device Ports (Nx_Ports)
N_Port - Node Port, a Fabric device directly attached
NL_Port - Node Loop Port, a device attached to a loop
Switch Ports
U_Port - Universal Port, a port waiting to become another port type
F_Port - Fabric Port, a port to which an N_Port attaches
FL_Port - Fabric Loop Port, a port to which a loop attaches
G_Port - Generic Port, a port waiting to be an E_Port or F_Port
E_Port - Expansion Port, a port used for inter-switch links (ISLs)
- VE_Port - Virtual E_Port (used in FCIP fabrics)
- EX_Port - A type of E_Port used to connect to a FC Router fabric
- VEX_Port - VEX_Ports are no different from EX_Ports, except underlying transport is IP rather than
FC
Figure 10: Port Types
Fabric Initialization Process
Figure 11: Fabric Initialization Process
Fabric Generic Services
Services used to manage a FC network such as Fabric port logins (FFFFFE), Name Server registration
(FFFFFC), State Change services (FFFFFD), etc.
Usually only found in the switched fabric topology
Each generic service is assigned a specific address referred to as its Well-Known Address (FFFFFx)
Well-Known Addresses
Every switch has reserved 24-bit addresses known as Well Known Addresses. The services residing at these
addresses provide a service to either nodes or management applications in the fabric.
FFFFF6 Clock Synchronization Server: Clock Synchronization over Fibre Channel is attained through a
Clock Synchronization Server that contains a reference clock. The Server synchronizes Clients clocks to
the reference clock on a periodic basis using either Primitive Signals or ELS frames.
FFFFF7 Security Server: The security-key distribution service offers a mechanism for the secure
distribution of secret encryption keys.
FFFFF8 Alias Server: The Alias Server manages the registration and de-registration of Alias IDs for both
Hunt Groups and Multicast Groups. The Alias Server is not involved in the routing of frames for any Group.
FFFFFA Management Server: The Management server provides a single point for managing the fabric.
FFFFFB Time Server: The time server sends to the member switches in the fabric the time on either the
principal switch or the Primary FCS switch.
FFFFFC Directory (Name Server): The directory server/name server is where fabric/public nodes register
themselves and query to discover other devices in the fabric.
FFFFFD Fabric Controller: The fabric controller provides state change notifications to registered nodes
when a change in the fabric topology occurs.
FFFFFE F_Port (Fabric Server Login): Before a fabric node can communicate with services on the switch or
other nodes in the fabric, an address is assigned by the fabric login server. Fabric addresses assigned to
nodes are 3 bytes long and are a combination of the domain ID plus the port area number of the port the
node is attached to.
FFFFFF Broadcast Server: When a frame is transmitted to this address, the frame is broadcast to all
operational N and NL ports.
NPIV (N_Port ID Virtualization)
Virtual servers require secure access to storage the same way as physical servers do
Without NPIV, a single physical server connection is unable to provide independent storage access to
individual virtual servers
Instead, all storage ports and Logical Unit Numbers (LUNs) are exposed to all virtual machines, reducing
security and manageability
NPIV is an ANSI standard designed to solve this problem
NPIV devices connected to the same switch port must have a unique 24 bit address as well as a unique
device pWWN
Figure 12: NPIV
Shared Area Numbers
Figure 13: Shared Area Numbers
The ability to address 384 ports in a single switch required a change to the 24-bit addressing scheme (PID).
The second byte of a PID is referred to as the Area ID. With 8 bits, the Area ID can address ports 0-255.
Brocade now uses a portion of the third byte of the PID to address ports 256-383. The third byte of a PID is
referred to as the Node Address. The Node Address was used to identify the address (ALPA) for a loop device.
Given that a portion of the 3rd byte is used to address ports 256-383, loop devices are not supported on the
FCx-48 blades. This also requires the Area ID to be shared (used twice).
The grey boxes represent Port Indexes 0-127. The Area ID for these Indexes are not shared
The blue boxes represent the Port Indexes on ASIC 0 of each FC8-48 port card that are shared (ports 16-
23 share the same Area ID with ports 40-47, respectively)
The yellow boxes represent the Port Indexes on ASIC 1 of each FC8-48 port card that are shared (ports 24-
31 share the same Area ID with ports 32-39, respectively)
With shared Area IDs, the lower port number on the card has a Node Address of 0x00 while the higher port
number on the card has a Node Address of 0x80
4 - Layer 2/Layer 3 Routing and Extension Solutions
Implementation Requirements for Extended Fabric Solutions
Display buffer allocation information with the portbuffershow command.
sw2: admi n> portbuffershow
User Por t Lx Max/ Resv Buf f er Needed Li nk Remai ni ng
Por t Type Mode Buf f er s Usage Buf f er s Di st ance Buf f er s
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
0 L - 8 8 - -
. . . <t r uncat ed out put > . . .
3 E - 8 26 26 5km
4 E - 8 26 26 2km
5 E - 8 26 26 2km
6 - 8 0 - -
7 - 8 0 - -
8 E LD 56 31 31 25km
9 E LD 56 31 31 25km
10 E - 8 26 26 2km
11 E - 8 26 26 2km
12 E - 8 26 26 2km
13 E - 8 26 26 2km
14 E - 8 26 26 2km
15 E - 8 26 26 2km
16 - 8 0 - -
. . . <t r uncat ed out put , al l t r uncat ed por t s t he same as por t 16>. . .
31 - 8 0 - - 486
Use this command to display the current long distance buffer information for the ports in a port group. The
port group can be specified by giving any port number in that group. If no port is specified, then the long
distance buffer information for all of the port groups of the switch is displayed.
Lx Mode Long distance mode
Max/Resv Buffers The maximum or reserved number of buffers that are
allocated to the port based on the estimated distance
Buffer Usage The actual number of buffers allocated to the port.
Needed Buffers The number of buffers needed to utilize the port at full
bandwidth
Link Distance For L0 (not in long distance mode), the command displays
the fixed distance based on port speed, for instance: 10
Km (1 Gbit/sec), 5 Km (2 Gbit/sec), 2 Km (4 Gbit/sec), or
1 Km (8 Gbit/sec). For static long distance mode (LE), the
fixeddistance displays. 10 Km. For LD mode, the distance
in kilometers displays as measured by timing the return
trip of a MARK primitive that is sent and then echoed back
to the switch. LD mode supports distances up to 500 Km.
Distance measurement on a link longer than 500 Km
might not be accurate. If the connecting port does not
support LD mode, is shows N/A
Remaining Buffers The remaining (unallocated and reserved) buffers in a port
group
Buffer to Buffer Credit Allocation
While exact calculations are possible, a simple rule of thumb is used in the calculation of the BB credit
requirement of a given link.
Rule of thumb: Based on the speed of light in an optical cable (5ns/m), a full-size FC frame spans
approximately:
4 km at 1 Gbit/sec
2 km at 2 Gbit/sec
1 km at 4 Gbit/sec
0.5 km at 8 Gbit/sec
400m at 10 Gbit/sec
For example, to fill a link that spans a distance of 10 km:
5 credits per port at 1 Gbit/sec
If your payload size is smaller than 2112 bytes use the following formula to calculate exact number of
minimum buffer credit requirements:
buffer credits = [(distance in km) * (data rate) * 1000] / (payload size)
Note: The use of QoS can also effect the distance. If QoS is enabled, an additional 16 buffer credits are
allocated per port for 8 Gbit/sec ports in LE mode
E_Port Credit Recovery
Figure 14: E_Port Credit Recovery
E_Port Credit Recovery is a new enhancement for Fabric OS v6.1
Provides a more robust credit recovery for lost buffer credits or frames on long distance E_Ports
Tracks both buffer credits sent and frames sent
E_Port Credit Recovery is enabled by default and is only supported on long distance E_Port links (LE, LD,
and LS long distance modes). R_RDY mode supported, but EX, VE, and VEX ports are not supported
Prior to this enhancement, a long distance port had to lose all transmit buffer credits before a Link Reset
would occur to recover the lost credits. Until all credits are lost, the port would operate in a buffer
starvation state. Under the new Link Reset protocol, once a lost buffer is detected, switch will perform the
following:
- Hardware notifies software that a lost credit occurred
- Immediately, software generates a Link Reset to recover credits
- portlogdump records an LR2 event
- RASlog is updated with an error message
E_Port Credit recovery is negotiated during ELP phase
Two new primitives are used to track frames and credits sent. Both types are always used, one for frames
and one for credit count
- BB_SCs Primitive: credit recovery primitive for frames. Is generated every 2^BB_SC_N frames sent.
When a BB_SCs is received, switch will determine if 2^BB_SC_N frames have been received
- BB_SCr Primitive: credit recovery primitive for credits - Is generated every 2^BB_SC_N VC_RDYs or
R_RDYs sent. When a BB_SCr is received, switch will determine if 2^BB_SC_N VC_RDYs or R_RDYs
have been received
Supported on 300, 5100, 5300 and DCX Backbone (GE2 and Condor2 ASICs only)
Trunking
Trunking license required for all switches participating in trunking
Available when the license is installed and ports are reinitialized
Trunking is enabled by default; if previously disabled, it must be re-enabled (portcfgtrunkport) on the
trunk ports
Trunk ports must operate at a common port speed
Trunk ports must originate and end in valid port groups
When trunking criteria is met the trunk forms automatically
Multiple licenses may be required to implement features, such as trunking two B-series switches over long
distance would require both a trunking license and an extended fabric license
ASIC specific and advanced trunking criteria includes:
Interoperability is not supported with M-Series and third party switch vendors
The port ISL mode must be disabled (use the portcfgislmode command)
Long Distance Trunks must be set to the same distance
When using QoS, all ports in the trunk group must be QoS enable or they will not join the trunk
EX_Port Frame Trunking
In Fabric OS v5.2.0 and later, as a result of front domain consolidation, you can configure EX_Ports to use
frame-based trunking just as you do regular E_Ports. EX_Port frame trunking support is designed to
provide the best utilization and balance of frames transmitted on each link between the FC router and the
edge fabric. You should trunk all ports connected to the same edge fabrics
The FC router front domain has a higher node WWN derived from the FC router than that of the edge
fabric. Therefore, the FC router front domain initiates the trunking protocol on the EX_Port
After initiation, the first port from the trunk group that comes online is designated as the master port. The
other ports that come online on the trunk group are considered the slave ports. Adding or removing a slave
port does not cause frame drop
The restrictions for EX_Port frame trunking are the same as for E_Portsall the ports must be adjacent to
each other using the clearly marked groups on the front of the product
EX_Port frame-based trunking has a master trunk link. If the master trunk link goes down, the entire
EX_Port-based trunk re-forms and is taken offline for a short period of time. If there are no other links to
the edge fabric from the backbone, the master port going offline may cause a traffic disruption in the
backbone
Use the islshow command to display the current connections and status of the inter-switch link (ISL) of
each port on this switch. The node WWN, domain ID, and switch name to which the ISL is connected, the
speed and bandwidth of the connection, and whether this ISL is trunked are displayed
F_Port Trunking
F_Port trunking provides a trunk group between a switch in Access Gateway mode and a fabric
Trunking aggregates the bandwidth of the ports within the trunk group
Two commands are required to initiate F_Port masterless trunking:
- porttrunkarea
- portcfgtrunkport
Has the same requirements as ISL Trunking:
- Trunking license
- Port group to port group
- Same speed
Extended Fabrics
The Extended Fabrics licensed feature extends the distance the inter-switch links (ISLs) can reach over a
dark fiber or wave division multiplexing (WDM) connection. This is accomplished by providing enough
buffer credits on each side of the link to compensate for latency introduced by the extended distance
Extended Fabric licenses are required on the bookend switches that connect the two remote ends of the
fabrics over a long distance (greater than 10 km)
As the distance between switches and the link speed increases, additional buffer credits are required for
the ports used for long distance connections
Distance levels (LD or LS) define how these buffer credits are allocated and managed for extended ISLs.
Buffer credits are managed from a common pool available to a group of ports on a switch
Connecting ports on bookend switches need to be set to the same long distance parameters
Use Web Tools Switch Admin Extended Fabric View panel
Use the portcfglongdistance command to specify an Extended Fabric Distance Level
- Level 0 static mode (L0) is the normal mode for a port
- Level E static mode (LE) reserves a static number of buffer credits that supports distances up to 10
km
- Dynamic Mode (LD) calculates buffer credits based on the distance measured during port initializa-
tion
- Static long distance mode (LS) calculates a static number of buffer credits based on a desired dis-
tance value
The portshow x command can be ran to see the distance setting on the port
Configure and Verify an FCIP Solution
Ports used on an FCIP tunnel must be persistently disabled before you can configure FCIP tunnels.
- Enter the portcfgshow command to view ports that are persistently disabled
- After identifying the ports, enter the portcfgpersistentdisable command to disable any
ports that you will use in the FCIP tunnel configuration
The portcmd --ipperf [slot]/port command captures end-to-end IP performance data over an
GbE port and can be useful in validate a service provider Service Level Agreement (SLA) throughput, loss
and delay characteristics
Creating an FCIP Tunnel
With the IP interface created, create an FCIP tunnel on the configured local IP interfaces
Use the portcfg fciptunnel command to configure
The switch with lower local IP address will attempt to connect (initiate) connection using the configured
"remote IP address
The switch with higher local IP address will listen (accept) connection only from configured "remote IP
address"
The portcfg fciptunnel command requires the same settings at both ends of the FCIP tunnel, or the
tunnel will not be established for the following:
- Hardware compression
- Fastwrite
- Tape Pipelining
IPv6 Support
Fabric OS v6.1+ supports IPv6 addresses on GbE ports for FCIP
A GbE port on the Brocade 7500/FR4-18i may have IPv4 and IPv6 interfaces simultaneously
IPv6 is not supported on the GbE ports on the FC4-16IP and FA4-18 blades
When an IPv6 address is configured on a Brocade 7500 or FR4-18i GbE port, IPSec may not be configured
on that chassis or blade
Compression is not supported on an IPv6 configured FCIP tunnel
IPv6 packets may not be tunneled through an IPv4 network
Tunnels must be IPv4 <-> IPv4 or IPv6 <-> IPv6
IPSec
The following limitations apply to using IPSec:
IPv6, NAT, and AH are not supported
You can only create a single secure tunnel on a port; you cannot create a non-secure tunnel on the same
port as a secure tunnel
IPSec-specific statistics are not supported
To change the configuration of a secure tunnel, you must delete the tunnel and recreate it
Jumbo frames are not supported for IPSec
There is no RAS message support for IPSec
Only a single route is supported on an interface with a secure tunnel
IPSec can only be configured on IPv4 based tunnels. Secure tunnels can not be created on a Brocade
7500 router or FR4-18i blade if any IPv6 addresses are defined on either ge0 or ge1
Secure Tunnels cannot be defined with VLAN Tagged connections
Tape Performance
There are two options available for enhancing open systems SCSI tape write I/O performance:
- FCIP fastwrite and tape pipelining
- FC fastwrite
FCIP fastwrite and tape pipelining are implemented together
FC fastwrite is an FC-FC routing alternative that disables the local Ethernet ports (ge0 and ge1), making it
impossible to configure FCIP fastwrite and tape pipelining and FC fastwrite on the same 7500 or FC4-18i
blade
Routing in a Fabric
Data moves through a fabric from switch to switch and from storage to server along one or more paths that
make up a route. Routing policies determine the path for each frame of data.
The following routing policies are available to tune routing performance:
Exchange-based routing:
- The choice of routing path is based on the Source ID (SID), Destination ID (DID), and Fibre Channel
originator exchange ID (OXID), optimizing path utilization for the best performance. Thus, every
exchange can take a different path through the fabric. Exchange-based routing requires the use of
the Dynamic Load Sharing (DLS) feature; when this policy is in effect, you cannot disable the DLS
feature
Port-based routing:
- The choice of routing path is based only on the incoming port and the destination domain. To opti-
mize port-based routing, DLS can be enabled to share the load across the available output ports
within a domain
- Using port-based routing, you can assign a static route, in which the path chosen for traffic does
not change when a topology change occurs unless the path becomes unavailable. If the static
route violates FSPF, it is not used. In contrast, exchange-based routing policies always employ
dynamic path selection
DLS recomputes load sharing when a switch:
- Boots
- An E_Port/EX-port goes offline and online
- An EX_Port goes offline
Interop Mode
Mode 2 (McDATA Fabric Mode) and Mode 3 (McDATA Open Fabric Mode) support Fabric OS exchange-
based routing (default)
Both modes support frame-level Trunking in an M-EOS fabric between Fabric OS switches with Trunking
licenses
Routing from B-Series to the M-Series will use configured routing policy
Figure 15: Supported Routing Configurations
FC-to-FC Routing
Within the Routed Fabric, each Edge and Backbone Fabric is identified by a unique Fabric ID, or FID. The
FID can range in value from 1 to 128, theoretically allowing up to 128 Edge and Backbone Fabrics per
Routed Fabric
When an Edge Fabric is connected to a router-based Backbone Fabric, the EX_Ports are assigned a Front
Phantom Domain or Front Domain (FD)
All IFLs from a FC Router to the same edge fabric share the same FD (referred to as front domain
consolidation)
5 - Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting Basic Switch Connectivity Issues
When escalating a problem to the next level, the following should be provided:
A clear problem statement (including ports or WWN)
supportsave (FOS) or Data Collection (M-EOS) for each switch involved in the problem
Supporting data such as host logs or reports generated from tools such as SAN Health, Fabric Manager or
EFCM or analyzer traces
A clear explanation of what steps have been taken to troubleshoot the problem
A time line showing when the problem occurred and when troubleshooting steps were tried (helpful when
reviewing logs to understand events)
For M-Series switches, a data collection can be capture either through EFCMs Group Manager, Element
Manager or CLI
For M-Series SAN performance issues, using EFCM, export the performance reports by running a SAN
Export and include the performance reports as part of the exported data
Port Errors
Statistical error depicted in a porterrshow could be displayed as an error that has occured since the
last reboot and indicate devices being plugged in/out and set up/configuration work that occurred. Use
portstatsclear <port #> to clear all the errors. If the errors rapidly rise, look for a physical media
problem. Statistically, enc_out errors alone imply cables, enc_out & crc_err combo implies GBIC/SFP
If the error counters continue to rise, move cable to another port. If the problem follows the cable then
suspect a faulty cable or attached media (GBIC/SFP/HBA and/or HBA driver). If the problem disappears,
run porttest
In-order Delivery
Enabling in-order delivery (IODset) guarantees that frames are either delivered in order or dropped. You
should only force in-order frame delivery across topology changes if the fabric contains destination devices
that cannot tolerate occasional out-of-order frame delivery
- iodset = E_D_TOV (2000 ms)
- This value can be changed by issuing the switchdisable;configure command. This allows
you to increase the value of the E_D_TOV parameter. Be aware if you change tis value you must
do the same to the rest of the switches, as this is considered a fabric.ops parameter
- By default IOD is = iodreset or off
You can disable the switches ability to perform this re-routing mechanism by using dlsreset
Operational States of Brocade Products
Use the switchshow command to display switch and port status information. Information might vary by
switch model: for instance, number of ports and domain ID values
Switch beaconing for B-Series can be enabled via Web Tools and CLI
M-Series switch beaconing can be enabled via Element Manager and CLI
AC and DC power consumption on each Brocade 48000 and Brocade DCX Backbone can be displayed
using the slowshow -p command
Performance Issues
Two Advanced Performance Monitor tools report real-time output:
Top Talkers - determines the flows (SID/DID pairs) that are the major users of bandwidth (after initial
stabilization). Top Talker monitors measure bandwidth usage data in real-time and relative to the port on
which the monitor is installed
End-to-end Performance Monitor - counts the number of words in Fibre Channel frames for a specified
Source ID (SID) and Destination ID (DID) pair. An end-to-end performance monitor includes these counts:
- RX_COUNT (words in frames received at the port)
- TX_COUNT (words in frames transmitted from the port)
Causes for Segmentation
Figure 16: Causes for Segmentation
Note: Security Policy can also be a cause for segmentation
6 - Administration and Maintenance
Management Tools
Web Tools
Simplify management by viewing all switches in the fabric and their current status
Perform administration and configuration tasks for specific switches or individual ports (enable/disable
ports, configure port type and speed, swap ports)
Increase flexibility by performing administrative and configuration tasks from any remote location through
a Web browser and Internet connection
View real-time performance data for monitoring and tuning activities
Utilize wizards to reduce the chances of errors on multi-step management tasks such as zoning
Leverage support for standards such as Fabric Device Management Interface (FDMI) to extract additional
information from the fabric
ESCM
Enterprise Server Connectivity Manager (ESCM) is an HBA management tool. With ESCM you can:
Collect event logs
Manage HBA firmware upgrades
Access the Boot BIOS
View port statistics including error statistics
Manage remote hosts (Import HBAs from other hosts)
Perform diagnostics
Configure device persistence
EFCM
EFCM Basic is the embedded web server within the M-Series products and does not require a license. The
Mi10K does not have EFCM basic, use CLI or EFCM to manage
EFCM Standard Edition is intended for small business SANs, up to a maximum of 140 ports
EFCM Enterprise Edition is intended for all environments, including the largest Enterprise-class data
centers. EFCM Enterprise is the only option for those customer who wish to license the optional EFCM V9.7
Advanced Module or Software Bundles. EFCM Enterprise (required for M-EOS Directors) supports up to
2500 ports and 25 simultaneous clients. It also gives you the option to export configurations to flat-files
and to databases (mySQL and DB2). It also allows auto discovery via subnets
Each M-Series Switch in the fabric requires an Element Manager license installed in order to be managed
by EFCM. Like Fabric OS Switches/Directors, M-EOS Switch/Director license keys are linked to serial
numbers. Directors with M-EOS automatically add license features for all previously purchased software.
M-EOS Switches with M-EOS 6.0 or later need a feature key to enable Element Manger or any other Switch
feature. When you purchase additional software license keys you receive a new feature key that includes
existing features
The Advanced SAN Routing option gives you the equivalent functionality to manage classic McDATA routers
by linking to SANvergence Enterprise, and is available with either the EFCM Enterprise Edition or EFCM
Standard Edition
The Advanced Module enables four EFCM software modules: Performance, Event Management, Group
Configuration, and Security Center
Bundling options include the Advanced modules and PFE (Product Feature Enhancement) keys for
firmware-based features like Open Trunking, and FICON Management Server
Binding and Authentication are also available a la carte for individual switches or combined into Software
Bundles with the Advanced Module. These software bundles are sold on a per-product basis and are
designed to provide all the advanced capabilities necessary for a particular type of environment. They are
sold separately and include device-specific firmware enhancements, such as FICON, large-scale mixed
fabrics, enhanced encryption and performance tuning
An FTP server can be configured and installed during the EFCM installation
Fabric Manager
GUI-based application that allows monitoring and management of an entire B-series SAN from one central
location
Has the ability to get high-level or detailed information about fabrics, switches and ports
Launches Brocade Web Tools and related services as needed
Assists by centralizing the configuration, monitoring and management tasks of SANs
Enables firmware download and change management across multiple switches and fabrics
Provides rapid access to SAN information across B-Series SANs
Table 8: When to Use EFCM or Fabric Manager

Install ati on EFCM FM
All Brocade X
All Legacy McDATA X
Mixed Legacy McDATA &
Brocade
X
New SANs with >100 ports X X
New customer with 48000, 5000 X
New customer with i10K, 6140 X
Install ati on EFCM FM
All Brocade X
All Legacy McDATA X
Mixed Legacy McDATA &
Brocade
X
New SANs with >100 ports X X
New customer with 48000, 5000 X
New customer with i10K, 6140 X
Implementing Zoning
Zoning Best Practices
Make all names meaningful
Create aliases to easily identify devices
Define each zone with a single HBA initiator
Zone from the switch with the latest Fabric OS level
Zone from a core switch rather than an edge switch
Consider setting default zone to noaccess to prevent any device access when zoning is not enabled
Monitor zone database size
Considerations when defining all members in a zone with <domain,port> or <domain,area>:
- Provides hardware enforcement
- Allows devices to communicate that are connected to the ports defined within the zone
- Requires a zoning change if a device is moved to a port outside the zone
- No zoning change if the devices WWN changes
Considerations when defining all members in a zone with their device WWN:
- Provides hardware enforcement
- Allows devices to communicate that have their WWN in the same zone
- Requires a zoning change if the devices WWN changes
- No zoning change if a device is moved to another port in the fabric
Fibre Channel FastWrite and LSAN zones must use PWWN zoning
Zoning Database
The switch with the lowest maximum determines the maximum zoning database size for the fabric
If a switch attempts to join a fabric that has a zone database size greater than the supported maximum
size of the switch, a segmentation error will occur (the request to join the fabric will be rejected) preventing
the switch from joining the fabric
FOS levels and Interop modes also effect the maximum zoning database size
Figure 17: Zoning Database Size
Zoning
In early versions of Fabric OS, when zoning was not implemented or a cfgdisable command was issued,
all devices in the fabric could access each other
In Fabric OS v5.1.0+, you can now create a default zone:
- Controls what device access is allowed within a fabric when zoning is not enabled
- Enable all device access with defzone --allaccess (default)
- Disable all device access with defzone -noaccess
Hardware-enforced zoning is in effect when all of the members of a zone are defined the same way, either
using WWNs or domain,port notation
If a zone does not have either all WWN or all domain,port entries, then session-enforced zoning is in effect
For overlapping zones (in which zone members appear in two or more zones), hardware-enforced zoning is
in effect as long as the overlapping zones have either all WWN or all domain,port entries
Reference Material and Information Sources
Reference materials:
Brocade Data Center Ready Capability Matrix:
http://www.brocade.com/products/SAN_interop_and_compatibility.jsp
Fabric OS Message Reference
Fabric OS Administrators Guide
Fabric Watch Administrators Guide
Fabric OS Release Notes
Access Gateway Administrators Guide
Fabric OS Command Reference Manual
Information sources:
Error messages on Fabric OS switches
Configuration / SAN monitoring
Taking the Test
After the Introduction Screen, once you click on Next, you will see the non-disclosure agreement:
Figure 18: NDA Agreement
Once you agree to the non-disclosure terms, the timed exam will begin. This is a sample of how the questions
will look. In this example, you see a multiple-choice question.
Figure 19: Sample Question
This is a sample of the score sheet you will see at the end of the exam. You also see the breakdown of how
many questions there are in each section of the exam. A hard copy of this will be printed at the testing center.
It is vital that you obtain and save this hard copy as proof and validation.
Figure 20: Example Exam Score

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