Dell POWEREDGE M1000E - Manual (Page 21)

Fabric Watch Administrator’s Guide 1
53-1002752-01
Chapter
1
Fabric Watch
In this chapter
• Fabric health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
• Fabric Watch overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
• Role-based access control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
• Fabric Watch licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
• Reasons to customize Fabric Watch settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
• Class, area, and element hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
• Switch monitoring components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
• Logical switch support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
• Fabric Watch event settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
• Fabric Watch notification types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
• Fabric Watch audit messages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
• Data values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
• Fabric Watch support in Access Gateway mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Fabric health
Fabric health refers to the capability of the fabric to route data. A healthy fabric enables effective
data transmission between networked devices.
One of the more obvious criteria for fabric health is the condition of the network hardware. A switch
or port failure can prevent data packets from reaching their destination. Network traffic can also
influence fabric health.
If the number of packets routed through a port exceeds the port bandwidth, it causes network
delays and packet loss. Receive (Rx) and Transmit (Tx) performance areas are used to monitor the
bandwidth utilization to help keep traffic flowing to avoid congestion.
Because of the varied factors involved in determining fabric health, Fabric Watch can help you to
detect, identify, and resolve fabric health issues by continuously monitoring possible issues and
reporting any potential concerns. Fabric Watch automatically provides detailed reports on detected
issues and helps you correct failures.