Configuration Preparation - Brocade Communications Systems StoreFabric SN6500B Administrator's Manual

NOTE
The 7800 is expected to support no more than about 120,000 extended device images (FICON or
FCP). A single FX8-24 DP is expected to support no more than 160,000 extended device images.

Configuration preparation

Before you begin to configure FCIP, do the following:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Fabric OS FCIP Administrator's Guide
53-1002748-01
Determine the amount of bandwidth that will be required for the RDR, FICON, or tape
application to be deployed.
The WAN link has been provisioned and tested for integrity.
Cabling within the data center has been completed.
Equipment has been physically installed and powered on.
Make sure you have admin access to all switches and blades you need to configure.
For the 7800 switch, determine if copper or optical ports will be used for GbE ports 0 and 1.
For the FX8-24 blade, determine which of the three possible GbE or XGE port operating modes
will be used.
Determine which 10GbE crossports on FX8-24 blades should get active versus passive or
active versus active configurations.
Obtain subnets and assign IP addresses for each circuit endpoint that you intend to use, plus
the netmask and MTU size. The MTU size may be smaller than 1500 if there is an IPsec or
similar device in the FCIP path. If the MTU is larger than 1500, then 1500 must be used on the
7800 switch or FX8-24 blade.
NOTE
The 7800 switch and FX8-24 blade support a maximum MTU size of 1500.
Determine the gateway IP address as needed for each route across the WAN. The gateway IP
address will be on the same IP subnet as the subnet used for the FCIP ipif interface that will
use that gateway.
Determine if there is any reason to turn off selective acknowledgement (SACK). Because SACK
improves performance for most installations, it is turned on by default.
Determine the VE_Port numbers you want to use. The VE_Port numbers serve as tunnel IDs.
Determine source and destination IP addresses for circuit 0, and for ARL the minimum and
maximum rates. These values are set by the portCfg fciptunnel create command. If ARL is not
being used, then only the committed rate is required for circuit 0.
Determine how many additional FCIP circuits you want to create. You will need the source and
destination IP addresses for each circuit, and the minimum and maximum rates for the ARL, or
committed rate if not using ARL. You will need to know if you intend to assign metrics to circuits
to implement standby circuits. For all circuits except circuit 0, these values are set by the
portCfg fcipcircuit create command.
When configuring tunnels to support large numbers of devices, consider memory limitations of
the Brocade 7800 switch and FX8-24 blade if you are enabling any type of emulation feature,
such as FCP or FICON. If too many devices are present or activated at one time, emulation
operations can be negatively impacted. Refer to
tunnel configurations" on page 35.

Configuration preparation

"Memory use limitations for large-device
2
37