Dell Brocade Adapters - Manual (Page 66)

38 Brocade Adapters Installation and Reference Manual
53-1002144-01
Adapter software
1
LANs created by BCU commands or HCM options are directly bound to upper protocols. All
traffic goes from the protocols layer to the VLANs, then to the network driver. You should not
enable TCP, IPV4, or other protocols or services for the network driver after installing the
intermediate driver.
Each driver package contains the following components:
• Driver for your host system. In most cases, both the required storage and network drivers are
included in installation packages. For systems not supporting network drivers, only the storage
driver is included.
• Firmware
Firmware is installed in the adapter’s on-board flash memory and operates on the adapter’s
CPU. It provides an interface to the host device driver and off-loads many low-level
hardware-specific programming tasks typically performed by the device driver. The firmware
provides appropriate support for both the storage and network drivers to manage the
hardware. Depending on the adapter model, it also provides the following functions:
- For CNAs and for Fabric Adapters with ports configured in CNA mode, it manages the
physical Ethernet link to present an Ethernet interface to the network driver and a virtual
FCoE link to the storage driver once DCB compliance is established for the link.
- For Fabric Adapters with ports configured in NIC mode, it manages the physical Ethernet
link to present an Ethernet interface to the network driver.
ATTENTION
The LLDP/DCBCXP engine is implemented in the firmware. Therefore, any other instance of
LLDP agent or software must not be used with a CNA or Fabric Adapter port configured in CNA
mode.
Management utilities
The following management Utilities are included with all driver packages.
• Brocade Command Line Utility (BCU)
An application from which you can enter commands to monitor, install, and configure Brocade
adapters.
• Brocade Adapter Software Installer (BASI).
This includes a GUI-based installer and command-line installer that provides options for
installing all adapter drivers, all adapter drivers and HCM, or HCM only for a specific operating
system and platform.
• Installation scripts.
These allow you to install drivers, the HCM agent, and utilities to your host system without
using the Brocade Adapter Software Installer.
For Windows systems, download the .exe file appropriate for your Windows system, extract
files, then run the brocade_installer.bat command.