Ficon best practices for virtual fabrics – Brocade Network Advisor SAN User Manual v12.3.0 User Manual
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Brocade Network Advisor SAN User Manual
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FICON best practices for Virtual Fabrics
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FICON best practices for Virtual Fabrics
Use the following recommended best practices and considerations for configuring Virtual Fabrics in
a FICON environment when following the procedures under
•
When configuring the logical switch in the New Logical Fabric Template or New Logical Switch
dialog box (Fabric tab), use the following parameters. Note that the New Logical Fabric
Template dialog box creates a fabric template. You can always rename the fabric and change
parameters after the new fabric is created.
-
Logical Fabric ID (FID) – Use any FID as long as all switches in a fabric have the same
Fabric ID. The default Fabric ID for the default switch is 128, which leaves 1 through 127
for newly created fabrics.
-
256 Area Limit – “Disabled” is not supported for FICON. As a recommended best practice,
use “Zero Based Area Assignment” as this will work for any configuration.
-
R_A_TOV, E_D_TOV, WAN_TOV, Maximum Hops, BB Credit, Data Field Size – Do not change
these parameters unless otherwise directed by your switch service provider. Any change to
these parameters is a rare case.
-
Interoperability Mode – With Fabric OS 7.0.0 and later, only “Brocade Native” mode is
supported, so this parameter cannot be changed.
-
Base Switch or Base Fabric for Transport (XISL) - Do not select these check boxes as they
are not supported for FICON.
-
Sequence Level Switching, Per-Frame Routing Priority, Suppress Class F Traffic – Do not
select these check boxes.
-
Disable Device Probing – When selected, third-party software, except for CUP, is prohibited
from managing the switch. This check box should be selected unless otherwise advised by
your switch service provider.
-
Long Distance Fabric – This parameter sets E_Ports to LD mode (increases BB credits for
long distance performance). Select this check box only when ISLs between the switch and
a connected device exceed 10 Km. Dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) equipment
usually provides BB credits, so there is typically no reason for additional BB credits unless
there are direct ISLs between switches or course wave division multiplexing (CWDM) is
being used. Long Distance Fabric requires a license.
•
When configuring the logical fabric in the New Logical Fabric Template or New Logical Switch
dialog box (Switch tab), use the following parameters:
-
Preferred Domain ID – Use a unique domain ID for all switches. Domain IDs are entered in
either decimal or hexadecimal. If you enter the domain ID in decimal, ensure you use the
correct hexadecimal equivalent. For example, if the first byte of the link address is 33, then
the domain ID in decimal is 51. Also, use a domain ID that is the hexadecimal equivalent of
the Switch ID in the input/output completion port (IOCP). For example, for Switch ID 1F, set
Domain ID to 31 in decimal or 1F in hexadecimal.
-
Insistent – As a best practice, select this check box to not allow the domain ID to be
changed when a duplicate domain ID exists. Although an insistent domain ID is only
required when 2-byte link addressing is used on the host, setting Insistent for all
environments is the recommended best practice. Setting this parameter does not cause
any problems, but not selecting it can cause problems if 2-byte addressing is used in the
future.