Reliability; Serviceability - Brocade Communications Systems DCX 8510-8 Hardware Reference Manual

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The high-availability software architecture of the Brocade DCX 8510-8 provides a common
framework for all applications that reside on the system, allowing global and local states to be
maintained through any component failure. High-availability elements consist of the High
Availability Manager, the heartbeat, the fault/health framework, the replicated database,
initialization, and software upgrade.
The High Availability Manager controls access to the standby control processor, facilitates software
upgrades, prevents extraneous CP failover activity, closes and flushes streams, provides flow
control and message buffering, and supports a centralized active and standby state.

Reliability

The Brocade DCX 8510-8 uses the following error detection and correction mechanisms to ensure
reliability of data:
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Serviceability

The Brocade DCX 8510-8 provides the following features to enhance and ensure serviceability:
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Brocade DCX 8510-8 Backbone Hardware Reference Manual
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Redundant, hot-swappable FRUs, including blades, power supplies, blowers, WWN cards
Enhanced data integrity on all data paths
Fabric Shortest Path First (FSPF) rerouting around failed links
Integration with Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) managers
Automatic control processor failover
Nondisruptive "hot" software code loads and activation
Easy configuration, save, and restore
Error Detection and Correction over main control processor memory.
Error Detection and Correction mechanism, which checks for encoder errors and fault isolation
(EDFI), such as cyclic redundancy checking (CRC), parity checking, checksum, and illegal
address checking.
Power-on self-test (POST).
Dual control processors that enable hot, nondisruptive fast firmware upgrades.
One serial port and two Ethernet ports (on each control processor) for management and for
service. Offline control processor diagnostics and remote diagnostics simplify troubleshooting.
The standby control processor monitors diagnostics to ensure the system is operational should
a failover be necessary.
Bus monitoring and control of blades and other field-replaceable units (FRUs).
Modular design with hot-swappable components.
Flash memory that stores two firmware images per control processor.
USB port on control processor blades for most tasks that formerly required an FTP/SCP server,
including software and firmware upgrades.
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Reliability

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