Brocade Virtual Fabrics When Virtual Fabrics is enabled on a switch that supports the VF feature, the switch transforms

into a Default Logical Switch, which is like a regular L2 switch. All the ports in the switch now belong to the Default Logical Switch. The user must configure each port with a Fabric ID (FID) that uniquely maps a port to a Logical Switch. Any given port can only be in one Logical Switch. All ports with the same FID are a part of the same Logical Switch. Thus, the FID is the attribute that distinguishes one Logical Switch from the other. As the user initially allocates ports to new Logical Switches, those ports are removed from the Default Logical Switch and assigned to the specific Logical Switch that is being created DEF LS is also assigned a default Fabric ID of 128 A Base Switch, (also known as Base Logical Switch), provides a common address space for communication between different logical fabrics. By default, E_Port links between Base Switches would be a shared ISL (XISL) The FIDs of the two Logical Switches or Base switches connecting to each other must match All EX_Ports on a switch must be a part of the Base Switch. Base Switches do not support direct device connectivity; therefore, a Base Switch must have only E_Ports or EX_Ports. An ISL connected between two Logical Switches (LS) is called a DISL (Dedicated ISL). The user does not need to explicitly configure the port to be a DISL If the DISL from P3 of a Logical Switch (LS 1) is connected to P4 of (non-VFcapable) L2 Switch, it would now be termed as a regular ISL The terminologies are introduced to differentiate the connection points at the ends An ISL connecting two Base Switches is called an XISL. Logical Switches LS 1 and LS 2 are configured to share the XISL to communicate through logical link (LISL). Only the DISL and XISL are actual physical connections. The LISL does not represent a physical ISL. When VF is enabled on a switch, if there is an existing zoning configuration it now becomes part of the Default Logical Switch that was automatically created once VF was enabled. When new Logical Switches are partitioned from the Default Logical Switch, the zoning configuration is cleared and is no longer part of the Logical Switch; it remains only with the Default Logical Switch. When enabling VFs, the CPs are rebooted and all existing EX_Ports are disabled after the reboot. All Admin Domains must be deleted. When the Logical Switch is created, it is automatically enabled and empty that is, it does not have any ports in it. After creating the logical/base switch, the user must disable the switch to configure it and set the domain ID. Then the user must assign ports to the logical/base switch. Each switch can have only one

base switch. The logical/base switches are created with an empty zoning configuration, independent of whether the parent switch had a configuration present As a best practice and for ease of management, EMC recommends that the user enters the domain ID of the parent switch from which the Logical Switch is being created. That way, if VFs are being created within an existing fabric, there is no possibility of any domain conflicts occurring within a Virtual Fabric If Logical Switches have the option to use either a DISL or the XISL, they will use the DISL to route traffic, since it is a lower cost path as compared to an XISL. The Logical Switch will always look for DISLs first to route the traffic to another Logical Switch in the same Virtual Fabric Logical Switches with FID 6 and FID 8 will actually be using the XISLs, a switchshow on the Logical Switch with FID 8, DID 4 will display a logical E_Port with -1 for the slot and a virtual port number 289 for the slot port. Similarly, a switchshow on the Logical Switch with FID 6, DID 5 will display a logical E_Port with -1 for the slot and a virtual port number 288 for the slot port. This is an implication that this Logical Switch is using XISLs to rout traffic. when two Logical Switches are linked through ISLs, the following sequence of checks take place: Domain ID check. If the Domain ID check passes, then a zone check, operating mode, and FID check takes place. In most cases, the zone check takes place before the FID check. If one of the Logical Switches has no zone configuration, it pulls it from the other Logical Switch to which it is attached. It later segments due to an FID conflict (if the FIDs do not match). The user now needs to go into, and delete, the Logical Switch that imported the undesired zone configuration fosconfig --show fosconfig --enable vf Warning! This is a disruptive operation that requires a reboot to take effect. All EX ports will be disabled upon reboot. Would you like to continue [Y/N] y switchname:admin> prompt will change to switchname:FID128:admin> lscfg --create 127 base setcontext 127 switchname bsname lscfg --config 127 -slot 3 -port 0-15 (press enter and enter y at the prompt) lscfg --config 127 -slot 6 -port 0-15 To verify the VF state on the switch, use the following command: lfcfg --show