High availability, Reliability, High availability reliability – Brocade DCX 8510-8 Backbone Hardware Reference Manual User Manual

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Blades available for the Brocade DCX 8510-8 (Continued)

TABLE 1

Description

Name

Function

FCIP extension
blade

FX8-24

The FX8-24 blade enables FCIP functionality over existing IP infrastructure. It
has 12 FC ports, 10 1-GbE ports, and two 10-GbE ports available. This
application blade is compatible with the Brocade DCX 8510-8, Brocade DCX
8510-4, Brocade DCX, and Brocade DCX-4S and requires Fabric OS v7.0.0 or
later to run in the DCX 8510-4 and DCX 8510-8 chassis.

High availability

The following features contribute to the Brocade DCX 8510-8 high availability design:

• Redundant, hot-swappable FRUs, including blades, power supplies, blowers, and 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

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:

• 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).

High availability

Brocade DCX 8510-8 Backbone Hardware Reference Manual

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