These are used for FCIP in both Brocade and Cisco. Used to collect and share diagnostic info for troubleshooting with vendor supportīrocade, regardless of whether it’s 1g, 10, or 40g! Two Cisco switches or chassis can only be connected as E, TE or VTE links at capacities up to 512 gbps. ICLs allow for capacity expansion at up to 2 tbps between chassis with the advantage of not counting as a hop. Inter-Chassis Links – ICL in Brocade – are used to connected two Brocade chassis via ICL specific blades. Peer Links / VSS Link / VSL Link / Stack Ports Equivalent is VE ports and FCIP profile in NX-OS. VEX used to route between FC fabrics over IP. It’s kinda like a long-winded way of configuring TEs equivalent in NX-OS.Ĭommunication between any two FC Addresses/FCIDs.ĮX ports in Brocade for routing between FC fabrics. Then one can configure XISLs between two Base switches to carry LISLs in Brocade carry SINGLE Fabric from Base logical switch (aka Virtual Fabric and like a default VDC) to a logical switch aka another Virtual Fabric (like a regular VDC). Things do get murky when you get into Brocade FCOE, where Virtual TE, or VTE ports may be possible – not sure about that yet.Īlso LISLs (Logical ISL) in Brocade are similar (but not the same) as VTE in NX-OS. NX-OS TE ports are roughly equivalent to XISL (extended ISL) on Brocade switches. multiple fabrics on the same switch, using Logical Switches. Brocade also has the concept of VSANs, i.e.
On NX-OS, ISLs can carry multiple fabrics, i.e. On Brocade, ISL typically only carry one fabric at a time – and those are E ports. ISL – Inter-switch links – also E ports on Brocade or E/TE on NX-OS. There is no such distinction in NX-OS – a VSAN can have TE, F or E ports.Īllows routing between two separate fabrics – often used for backup appliances. Shows FC address/FCID to WWPN/WWNN mapping.īrocade has Base Logical Switch for creating XISL/TE ports between switches and regular Logical Switches for F and E Unlike Ethernet, where there is no distinction, both ends are simply Ethernet ports, FC has many various defined ports types – N, NP, F, E, TE, VTE, etc. Ports ON switches (to servers or storage)įabric Ports – ports from a Node (N port) to a switch (F port). In Brocade, they are still simply called N ports (AFAIK!).Ĭan be Trunking E, or TE ports on NX-OS, and Virtual TE (VTE) when doing FCOE on NX-OS In NX-OS, ports on the NPV switch going to the fabric are called NP ports. Node Ports are the same in Brocade and NX-OS. Device Alias on NX-OS are shared between all the switches in the fabric within a VSAN.
BROCADE SAN SWITCH CONCEPTS FULL
Additionally, in NX-OS, there is also something called a Full Zone Set, which is simply the zone configuration that has not been activated yet.Īlias on Brocade is shared within a Fabric. ESXi hosts and other virtualization platforms)Īctivated Zones are kinda like an applied access list aka access-group in IOS. Typically there is a zone for every pair of disk/server. They define which WWNN/WWPN can talk to each other. Zones are similar to ACLs except they are shared between all connected switches/domains within a fabric. Principle switch assigns the FCIDs and determines which switch manages certain control plane functions. Principle switch doesn’t have the same significance in FC as root switch does in Ethernet. Related to Quality of Services (QoS) configuration. The NX-OS Fibre Channel Switches also have a “domain ID” per VSAN, but are not referred to as a domain. Translate Domain ( xD) – which are kinda like VLANs/VSANs with especial purposes. There is also Converged Network Adapter, CNA, usually configured through server management GUI or BIOS/UEFI when used with FCoE capable switch, which virtually separates Ethernet and FC configuration over the same physical Ethernet based NIC.ĭomain can also be Virtual Fabric aka Logical Switches or something like VLANs within Brocade – e.g. It almost never needs to be tweaked or changed. NIC equivalents) so there could be multiple WWPNs associated with a single WWNN.įSPF configures itself automatically. Some systems can have multiple HBAs (i.e.
BROCADE SAN SWITCH CONCEPTS MAC
WWNN are like system MAC addresses and WWPN are like NIC MAC addresses. These are assigned automatically – are almost never assigned manually This table will definitely help me in being able to learn about and manage Brocade FC fabric.
That’s why I decided to create my own “translation” table. Being very familiar with NX-OS based Fibre Channel (FC) Fabrics, when I was presented with a Brocade (now Broadcom) FC fabric, first thing I googled was “Cisco to Brocade FC translation” and a few other variants.