Supported Configurations And Platforms; High Availability Support; Backward Compatibility Support; Using Ex_Port Frame Trunking - HP A7533A - Brocade 4Gb SAN Switch Base Administrator's Manual

Supported configurations and platforms

The EX_Port trunking is an FCR software feature and requires that you have a trunking license installed on
the FCR switch and on the edge fabric connected to the other side of the trunked EX_Ports. EX_Port trunking
is supported only with edge fabrics. You can use EX_Port frame trunking in the following configurations
and cases:
• Ports with speeds of 2 Gbps up to a maximum speed of 4 Gbps and trunking over long distance.
• In the edge fabric, when FCR is connected to a Condor-based switch such as the SAN Switch 4/32,
SAN Switch 4/32B, 4/64 SAN Switch, 4/256 SAN Director or DC Director with an FC4-48 blade,
that supports eight ports from the trunkable group.
• When FCR is connected to Bloom-based switches, such as the SAN Switch 2/16, SAN Switch 2/32,
SAN Director 2/128, or FC- 1 6 blade, supporting four ports in the trunk group. If the edge fabric is a
Bloom-based switch, the FCR will set up the trunking for four ports per trunk.
• When FCR is connected to an edge fabric using a mix of trunked and non-trunked EX_Ports. All will
share the same front domain.
• With a Secure Fabric OS edge fabric.

High availability support

The EX_Port frame trunking feature also is a High Availability (HA) supported feature. The HA protocol for
EX_Port trunking is as follows:
• If trunking is disabled prior to the HA failover, it remains disabled after the HA failover.
• If trunking is enabled prior to the HA failover, it remains enabled after the HA failover.

Backward compatibility support

For backward compatibility, FCR that supports EX_Port trunking can continue to interoperate with older
FCR switches and all previously supported Brocade switches in the Brocade edge fabric.

Using EX_Port frame trunking

With EX_Port frame trunking, you can use the same CLI commands as you do for E_Port trunking.

Security considerations

Administration control for EX_Port trunking is available through root, admin, and switch admin access.

Trunking commands

The procedure for administering EX_Port frame trunking is the same as for E_Port trunking. You initialize
trunking on ports with portCfgTrunkPort or switchCfgtrunk, and monitor traffic with the
portPerfShow command. You need a Brocade license to enable trunking; however, you can disable
trunking on the ports without the trunking license installed. You can use the following commands to enable
and disable trunking:
• Disable (0) or enable (1) trunking on a single port using the portCfgTrunkPort command. The
following example shows how to disable trunking on a single port and then how to enable trunking.
switch:admin_06> portcfgtrunkport 1/10 0
switch:admin_06> portcfgtrunkport 1/10 1
• Disable (0) or enable (1) trunking on all the ports of a switch using the switchCfgTrunk
command.The following example shows how to disable trunking on all ports and then how to enable
trunking.
switch:admin_06> switchcfgtrunk 0
switch:admin_06> switchcfgtrunk 1
Configuration applied to all ports except the following VE/VEX_Ports (ports 128 -
143, 192 - 207).
When either command is executed to update the trunking configuration, the ports for which the
configuration applies are disabled and re-enabled with the new trunk configuration. As a result, the traffic
230 Using the FC-FC routing service