Another question about IVR

1) so where do i put my ports (long way SFP that connect to dark fiber) ? I thought they need to go to VSAN 30

2) depending on what i do in question 1, if i add my long way ports to VSAN 30, they need to talk to the other side. If the other side has VSAN 30 with long wave ports that means i need to merge VSAN 30 so there is communication ?

If you say that i can leave my long way ports in say VSAN 1, do i need to trunk VSAN 30 over my long way ports (E ports)

3) i was told that i only need to define ivr vsan topology on one switch and then use CFS to distribute to other IVR enabled switch?

Thank you for your help

1). Transit VSAN need not have any ports (interface) in it.

2). VSAN 30 will extend from one site to other, as it will be a DWDM connection it wont be like a regular ISL and thus not a regular trunk, that is to say that this link will depend upon the bandwidth available in DWDM and thus will be different than a switch to switch connection in regular ISLs. Transit vsan will be a common vsan in both the sites acting as a transit route between the participating vsans, if that is what you mean by 'merge'.

3). You will have to do this one site at a time and yes you can select all participating VSANs in FM wizard.

4). Yes they can be IVR zonned using the 9513 and the 9222.

Hope this answers your questions.

Interesting discussion:

1) I also thought that a VSAN always needs ports in it, so in this case the long wave ports.

3) I was tought that in order to use a transit VSAN, IVR is needed on both sides.

Hmm, I'm curious now. This certainly is a topic that got my attention.

1). A transit VSAN may or may not have any interface (ports) assigned to it.

3). Yes, IVR needs to be enabled on both the border switches.

Thanks for your attention.

> 1). Here you are talking about the ISL ports (E ports with long wave GBICs), these can be in the default VSAN, i.e. VSAN 1, however VSAN 30 should be in the trunk allowed list of the ISL.

Ahhh, indeed, I totally forgot about that.... Just came back from 3 weeks vacation, you know.... Usually I put ISL's in VSAN 1 indeed

We all are humans and that's pretty normal with us humans, that's what differentiates us from the machines (and we are better than machines in many ways). Hope you enjoyed your vacation.

AbhishekKS,

thank you for your help.

Help me get better understanding of the use of transit VSAN. Looking at my diagram, let's say VSAN 10 and VSAN 110 have SRDF ports for two VMAX frames that need to replicate to each other.  When i first configure IVR i will specify that VSAN 10, 110 and 30 will be part of IVR configuration. After that i IVR zone SRDF port from VSAN 10 to SRDF port from VSAN 110.

1) SRDF start replicating, how is my data flowing, is it through VSAN 30.

2) What is the role of VSAN 30 (transit vsan) ?

3) Could i IVR zone without using transit vsan ?

1). Yes it will flow through VSAN 30.

2). Since we don't have a common VSAN, having its presence on both sites so we need a transit VSAN, which is IVRed to the VSANs which want to communicate to the remote VSAN:–

If two edge VSANs in an IVR zone overlap, then a transit VSAN is not required (though, not prohibited) to provide connectivity.

If two edge VSANs in an IVR zone do not overlap, you may need one or more transit VSANs to provide connectivity.

You may also have one of VSANs 10 / 110 act as transit VSAN, however as they do not extend till other site, we need a transit VSAN.

3). You cannot IVR zone the ports which are in VSAN 10 & VSAN 110 without the help of a transit VSAN, IVRed to these VSANs.

Hope this answers your questions.

2). Since we don't have a common VSAN, having its presence on both sites so we need a transit VSAN, which is IVRed to the VSANs which want to communicate to the remote VSAN:– If two edge VSANs in an IVR zone overlap, then a transit VSAN is not required (though, not prohibited) to provide connectivity. If two edge VSANs in an IVR zone do not overlap, you may need one or more transit VSANs to provide connectivity. You may also have one of VSANs 10 / 110 act as transit VSAN, however as they do not extend till other site, we need a transit VSAN.

what do you mean by edge VSANs ?  Are you talking about two VSANs  that reside on the same physical switch ? In Cisco documents they use the term "adjacent" when two VSANs reside on the same physical switch and need to be IVR together. In that case CIsco docs say there is no need for transit VSAN.

Thank you

Edge VSAN—A VSAN that initiates (source edge-VSAN) or terminates (destination edge-VSAN) an IVR path. Edge VSANs may be adjacent to each other or they may be connected by one or more transit VSANs.

Hope that answers your question.

Would this be another option? Have VSAN 30 on both sides like you described but just put both your storage ports in VSAN 30 rather then 10 and 110. I think this is less flexible but probably should work. I'm not familiar with SRDF so not sure if you mix host and mirror traffic on those ports. This option was presented to us by EMC when we were setting up mirrorivew over FCIP. We opted to stay with IVR since it was something we already had in place.

Yes, usually the remote site may not have the same VSAN and thus a transit VSAN will be required. Yes it may be better to keep both the traffics separate for the bandwidth availability.

Yes.You can have VSAN30 and both the SRDF ports in it.In that case,this is like extending a fabric with E-ports.there is no IVR happening here.

Or you can create the same VSAN on the otherside to talk to each other also..this would be least possible option.

The reason for Transit VSAN is to reduce the RSCN notifications happening on one side the WAN link to other side.

'ivr enable' lets you specify the VSANs that needs to routed using the following syntax.

switch(config)# ivr vsan-topology database

In this case, On the switch 9513 (let us say 5 is the common afid and VSAN 30 is transit vsan for vsan 10 and 110 and afid 6 and VSAN 40 for 20 and 200)

autonomus-fabric-id 5 switch-wwn 10,30

autonomus-fabric-id 6 switch-wwn 20,30

on 922i

autonomus-fabric-id 5 switch-wwn 40,110

autonomus-fabric-id 6 switch-wwn 40,200

is there a reason why i need to split them, could i use the same afcid for all 5 VSANs?

switch(config)# ivr distribute

switch(config)# ivr vsan-topology database

switch(config-ivr-topology-db)# autonomous-fabric-id 1 switch 20:00:00:05:30:01:1b:b8 vsan-ranges 10,20,30 

switch(config-ivr-topology-db)# autonomous-fabric-id 1 switch 20:00:00:05:30:01:5b:a0 vsan-ranges 110,200,30

switch(config)# ivr vsan-topology activate

from what i understand, as long as IVR is enabled on both switches and "ivr distribute" is set on both switches, the above commands can be run on 9513 and upon ivr topology activation, it will propagate to 9222i.