Dell POWEREDGE M1000E - Manual (Page 472)

472 Fabric OS Administrator’s Guide
53-1002745-02
ICL licensing
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ICL 8-link license
The ICL 8-link license activates half of the ICL bandwidth for each ICL port on the Brocade DCX
platform by enabling only half of the ICL links available. This allows you to purchase half the
bandwidth of the Brocade DCX ICL ports initially and upgrade with an additional ICL license to use
the full ICL bandwidth later. This license is also useful for environments with ICL connections
between a Brocade DCX and a DCX-4S, as the latter cannot support more than eight links on an ICL
port.
This license is available on the Brocade DCX-4S and DCX platforms only.
ICL 16-link license
The ICL 16-link license provides dedicated high-bandwidth links between two Brocade DCX chassis,
without consuming valuable front-end ports. Each Brocade DCX chassis must have the ICL 16-link
license installed in order to enable the full number of ICL connections possible (16 links in the case
of a DCX chassis).
This license is available for the Brocade DCX only.
Enterprise ICL license
The Enterprise ICL (EICL) license allows you to connect more than four Brocade DCX 8510
Backbones through ICLs. This license is available on the Brocade DCX 8510-8 and DCX 8510-4
platforms only.
The EICL license is required in addition to the ICL POD license.
The following requirements apply:
• Connection of four or fewer DCX 8510 Backbones with ICLs does not require the EICL license.
However, if you add additional ICL-connected chassis, then all ICL-connected chassis require
the EICL license.
• With the EICL license installed, a maximum of 10 chassis are allowed to be connected together
via ICLs.
• When Virtual Fabrics are used, the limit on the number of chassis connected together via ICLs
depends only on the physical chassis and not on the logical switches.
• If the maximum number of ICL-connected chassis exceeds the allowed limit with or without the
EICL license, additional links may either be disabled or segmented. The disabling/segmenting
reason code depends on whether the EICL license is installed.
• If ICL links to a chassis becomes segmented for non-EICL-related reasons, these links are part
of the fabric, and the chassis containing these segmented links is included in the maximum
chassis count. If the maximum chassis count (with or without EICL license) is reached with
these segmented links, then any additional links will become segmented. Therefore, to add
additional links, you first must disable the links that became segmented due to non-EICL
reasons. This should reduce the maximum chassis count and allow the new links to join.