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Planning Considerations for Fibre Channel Topologies
3
McDATA Products in a SAN Environment - Planning Manual
3-48
However, the firmware and SAN management applications do not
prevent FCP and FICON device configurations that may interfere
with each other. A successful intermix environment requires a set of
best practice conventions as follows:
1. Upgrade fabric element firmware to a common version - Ensure
fabric elements are operating at a common firmware level. This
reduces errors due to director or switch incompatibility. E/OS
Version 4.0 or higher is required to support FICON cascading.
E/OS Version 6.0 or higher is recommended.
2. Upgrade fabric element software to a common version - Ensure
fabric elements are operating at a common software level. This
simplifies fabric fault isolation and reduces errors due to
director or switch incompatibility. SANavigator 4.0 or EFCM 8.0
(or higher) is required to support a unified management style and
is recommended.
— When a director or switch is set to open systems management
style, a traditional Fibre Channel fabric is supported. Inband
management through the FMS or OSMS is also supported. The
key concern is to avoid disrupting installed FCP devices when
connecting FICON devices to a fabric element and modifying
configurations to facilitate FICON communication. The
Element Manager application does not use logical port
addressing or display the Configure Allow/Prohibit Matrix -
Active dialog box. A PDCM array is not supported, and the
HCD defined by an attached host describes FICON
connectivity requirements.
— When a director or switch is set to FICON management style,
either multiple domains (fabric elements) are supported, or
only a single domain (fabric element) is supported, depending
on the firmware release level. Inband management through
the FMS or OSMS is also supported. The Element Manager
application provides a PDCM array configured at the
Configure Allow/ Prohibit Matrix - Active dialog box. The array
activates all or a subset of the connectivity paths established
by a host-based HCD.
When using firmware prior to E/OS Version 4.0 and the
FICON management style, ports are set to F_Port operation,
thus eliminating E_Port capability (ISL and fabric capability).
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