How to set up ISL between Brocade 48000 and Brocade 4100

Hi,

When you say you have two 48000s and two 4100s, are these switches failover for eachother? That is, do they have same configuration and provide redundant paths to the devices? The next question is that are you going to have two fabrics with

1st fabric:-

48000------4100

and

2nd fabric:-

48000------4100

If there are two fabrics providing redundant paths then you will have the least disruption.

or are you looking for all switches in one fabric?

like:-

48000------4100

   |              

48000------4100

The first step would be to design the SAN topology diagram on a paper and then accordingly move to further steps. When you say that you want Brocade 48000's as principal switch, it implies that you want both of them to be principal and since there can't be more than one in a fabric, you are talking about two fabrics here.

Coming to domain ids, you will have to ensure that all the switches in a fabric must have a unique domain id. In case the domain ids are different on the 4100s you may leave them as it is, as they are unique, however if the 48000s are to be in one fabric you may have to change one of their domain ids as they both have same domain id.

For zoning configuration, you will have to first be sure which of these (or all) zoning information you want on the entire fabric. The new switch which joins the fabric will have the zoning information passed on to it from the fabric, but you must disable the zoning configuration on the switch that you are joining into the fabric (using the cfgDisable command) before you make it join the fabric. The fabric may continueto have its zone configuration enabled, however. If the new switch has a different zone configuration enabled, a fabric segmentation error will occur. A good practice will be, to backup all old zoning configurations before you make changes in them.

While adding or removing switches in a fabric, ensure that the fabric is in a quiescent state as possible. The process of adding a new switch that is already online or removing a switch causes a brief pause in I/O while the fabric reconfigures.

Hi

Thanks for your answer

But i have more questions for you.

I have this:

1st fabric:-

48000------4100

and

2nd fabric:-

48000------4100

I will change the domains ID for the 48000 because a i need them as principal i will change the domain id to 97 and 98.

The question here is: do i need to configure the mode in the 48000's (principal) as native fabric mode by using the web tool?

Let me tell you that in the 48000's i have this cfgset IMSS_MEX_NEW_SW48000_1 and in the 4100's i have ESN_IMSS_MX_CTX1 i have differents cfgset what happens to the cfgset into the 48000's(Principal)  I will lose this or the ISL merge those leaving the 48000s cfgset.

Best Regards.

Hi

Since you say that you will be having two fabrics having each a 48000 & a 4100, therefore you need not have different domain ids on the 48000s, as each of them will be in different fabrics, however its up to you if you want to change.

In web tools it should be on Brocade Native Fabric Mode, however it should be so, by default (assuming that you are not using this switch in interop mode).

With different zoning data enabled on both the switches, the fabric will not merge, so you will have to disable one of them. Decide which switch's zoning data you want or you want to merge the zoning data from both the switches. If you want the zoning data from both the switches to be there in the entire fabric then for them to automatically merge the conditions are:-

1). The alias names, zone names, and zone configuration names on the new switch and the fabric must be unique (the zone configurations must be completely different), or

2). The zone configurations on the new switch must exactly match the zone configurations of the fabric.

So for both zoning cfg sets to merge automatically you will have to ensure that all the zoning objects are unique and let the cfg on 48000 remain enabled and disable 4100's cfgset (using cfgDisable command on CLI) before merging. Else it will result in fabric segmentation and you will have to merge zoning data manually. Ensure that you take a backup of the configuration on all the switches, just in case you may need them in case of some error. You should have scheduled maintenance window for all this activity as there will be some disruption due to zoning cfg changes.

Hi

Thanks in advance

Last Question

I have 4 Brocades 48000's

those are in different fabric. 2 of them are old ones by using firmware 6.2.1b when i run switchshow command i get this output

Index Slot Port Address Media Speed State     Proto
===================================================
  0        1    0   610000   id         N4   Online                      F-Port  50:06:04:8a:d5:30:74:83

and 2 of them are the new ones(Those are the switches we were talking about the ISL) when i run switchshow command i get this output

Brocade 48000
Firmware 6.3.1a

Index Slot Port Address Media Speed State     Proto
===================================================
  0        1    0   610000   id    N4      Online         FC          F-Port  50:06:04:82:d5:31:81:07

you can see the difference i see in the Proto= FC on the switches running 6.3.1.a.

I checked the properties in both switches in both ports and those are te same.

it could be due to the firmware revisions?  or i need to disable something on the new ones(Running 6.3.1a) so that i disable FC in proto column?

Best regards

Hi,

Switchshow output includes the summary for each of the ports and both the output in your switches are completely fine. The column you are referring to is the protocol column it is used to denote the protocol a Gigabit Ethernet port supports, and the variables can be:-

ISCSI      showing      The ports supports ISCSI.

FCIP       showing      The port supports FCIP.

FCoE      showing      The port supports Fibre Channel over Ethernet.

You have only included the output for one of the FC ports, and thus the protocol is 'FC', showing that this port is supporting Fibre Channel. However coming to the difference part, you are right that the earlier FOS versions never said so for the FC ports. This definetly is pointing to the difference due to the newer FOS and you need not make any changes, to get that FC removed from the protocol column because that is the protocol it is supposed to run.

Thanks.

Hope your queries are answered.

Hope you don't mind me asking a follow-up question here ...

After you disable the zone config on the "new" switch and merge the fabrics, what happens to the zones that use to be active on the "new" switch? Are they automatically added to the active config on the "old" switch? Or, do they show up as defined zones that are not part of the active configuration ... that need to be added to the active config and re-enabled? I assume the "new" switches zone config still remains defined but is not active/enabled?

Thanks!