ISL's between 8510 and existing DCX switches

anything??

Hi tech51,

That is not that easy, it all depends how your setup is.

First off when you have the new Director, enable VF before going into production, that will save you a reboot.

Second, if the DCX is not in VF mode you only can use it with DISL (Dedicated ISL's). These are ISL directly connected to your VF on the 8510..

In your post you describe 2 scenario's, but you don't say if your DCX is in VF mode.

If not then you cannot use XISL's, and the DCX can only attached as a normal switch.

If the DCX has VF mode enabled, then the second option is possible.

Using XISL's, depends on the performance you want, but in general it is a good idea, since the XISL's are in a seperate fabric.

With regards the zoning, if you have several VF's on the DCX and several zone DB's can you should handle as adding normal switches to a fabric, if the DCX is not in vf mode and is working as only one physical chassis, with one DB, then you only able to use that, as mentioned above, as dedicated within one VF. There is no XISL possible then.

Best Regards,

Ed

Hello tech51

A storage administrator can then connect Logical Switches through various types of ISLs to create one or more Logical Fabrics.

There are three ways to connect Logical Switches: a traditional ISL, IFL (EX_Port used by FCR), and Extended ISL (XISL). An ISL can only be used for normal L2 traffic between the connected Logical Switches, carrying only data traffic within the Logical Fabric of which the ISL is a member. One advantage of Virtual Fabrics is that Logical Switches can share a common physical connection, and each LS does not require a dedicated ISL.

If your ED-DCX-B switch is not VF enabled and you intend to connect to a logical switch on your new ED-DCX-8510.

Standard ISLs can also used to connect a physical switch to a Logical Switch. In this situation, during the negotiation of the E-Port capabilities, the physical switch cannot share its FID, as it doesn’t have one, and thus the standard ISL is formed. The physical switch becomes part of the Logical Fabric to which it is connected, but continues to behave as a physical switch and believes the Logical Switches are also physical switches.

If your ED-DCX-B & ED-DCX-8510 are VF enabled

In order for multiple Logical Switches, in multiple Logical Fabrics, to share an ISL, Virtual Fabrics supports an XISL connection, which is a physical connection between two base switches. Base switches are a special type of Logical Switch that are specifically intended for intra- and inter-fabric communication. As mentioned, base switches are connected via XISLs and form the base fabric.

Once a base fabric is formed, the Virtual Fabric determines all of the Logical Switches (with the same FID) and Logical Fabrics that are physically associated via the base fabric, as well as the possible routes between them. For each local Logical Switch, a Logical ISL (LISL) is created for every destination Logical Switch in the same Virtual Fabric that is reachable via the base fabric. Thus, an XISL comprises the physical link between base switches and all of the virtual connections associated with that link. In addition to XISL support, the base fabric also supports IFLs via EX_Port connections for communication between Virtual Fabrics. Base switches also interoperate with FC router switches, either in the base fabric or in separate backbone fabrics.

Thanks

Chetan

Thanks Edschulte and Rangac1,

Pardon my partial knowledge when composing the original question.

I now have all the details...the Prod ED-DCX fabric is non-virtaul Fabric(about 5 switches). The new switch that will be introduced is an DCX-8510. We want to leverage VF's on the 8510.

That being said per your comments, i understand routing traffic via XISL is not possible. I will use DISL(ISL between logical switch 8510 and DCX fabric). that should merge the switch into the fabric and import the zoneset...

There is one other concerns...the prod DCX(existing) fabric has an older version of FOS -v6.4.3d1..

Will fabric merge happen?

Will the 8510 acquire the zoneset?

Any other concern..I should think about..Please comment.

Any document with the procedure will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Again.

Hi tech51,

Perfect, thanks for clearing that up, that saves us explaining the works of virtual fabrics.

With regards you questions:

Will fabric merge happen?

Answer: yes. (see below.)

Will the 8510 acquire the zoneset?

Answer: yes. (see below.)

Any other concern. I should think about.. Please comment.

Yes you should.

ED-8510 comes with 7.x firmware. And in principal, all switches in the same fabric need to be on the same firmware, so stop compatibility issue's with features and anything else.

So the advise it to upgrade to 7.x code first on all the DCX's, then plan your introduction of the ED-8510.

You are saying the you are running FOS v6.4.3d1, that looks to me not a EMC GA code version. EMC went GA with version 6.4.3d.

Any document with the procedure will be greatly appreciated.

On the EMC support site https://support.emc.com/downloads/ you should be able to find the ED-8510 director, and under the documentation, you can find the Administrator guide (and more).

For example on page 269 of the FOS 7.3.0 Admin guide, explains everything about Virtual fabrics.

I hope this answered your questions.

Regards,

Ed