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Article Number: 000212938

Connectrix: Fibre Channel Link Aggregation Feature Introduced in FOS v9.1.x

Summary: Fabric OS 9.1.0 introduces the Fibre Channel Link Aggregation (FC-LAG) feature to provide FC-LAG capability between Brocade switches and Cisco UCS FIs that are configured in end-host mode. ...

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Article Content

Instructions

OS switches allow FC end devices to log in to the switches through different mechanisms such as using direct connections, using Access Gateway (AG) as an intermediate, and also using third-party devices such as Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) servers and Fabric Interconnect (FI) devices. 

Fabric OS 9.1.0 introduces the Fibre Channel Link Aggregation (FC-LAG) feature to provide FC-LAG capability between Brocade switches and Cisco UCS FIs that are configured in end-host mode. This enhancement on Brocade switches supports three different connectivity options for UCS-FIs.

It provides the advantage of automatic load distribution based on the SID, DID, and OXID across all physical links in the FC-LAG, and it allows it to add and remove physical links to the FC-LAG without application disruption.

When an FOS switch port is configured to be a member of an FC-LAG, the link aggregation protocol is used to communicate with its peer to establish and manage the FC-LAG.

FC-LAG is supported on the following platforms:
  • X7-8 Director
  • X7-4 Director
  • G730 Switch
  • G720 Switch
  • X6-8 Director
  • X6-4 Director
  • G630 Switch
When it is enabled, a link aggregation protocol runs between the remote FI and the Brocade switch, and configures all the underlying physical links into a single aggregated links. The bandwidth is adjusted based on the available physical links, which improves load balancing and reduces congestion events.
 
NOTE:
  • A maximum of 96 FC-LAGs are allowed to be configured in a switch.
  • A maximum of 96 FC-LAGs are allowed to be configured in each switch partition.
  • The maximum number of physical links under each FC-LAG is 16.
  • All physical ports within an FC-LAG must have the same speed, and the FC-LAG must be formed within the same switch.
You might not find any UCS-FI related configuration in the Broadcom Guides, however there are no port channel configurations that we can do on our Broadcom switches. The configurations are to be performed separately on respective Broadcom switches and Cisco UCS-FI.

If you try to run the command on a switch which is not supported and supported with FCLAG, you receive the below outputs:
 
Not working on Switch DS-6620B:

6620b_admin> fclag --show
FC-LAG feature is not supported on this platform.


Working Switch DS-6630B:

6630b_admin> fclag --show
Total number of FC-LAGs = 0

Additional Information

Reference Documents:

Article Properties

Product

Connectrix B-Series

Last Published Date

26 Jul 2023

Version

4

Article Type

How To

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