Technical data

BCSM IN A NUTSHELL 2008
© 2008 Brocade Communications Systems, Incorporated.
Page 9 of 44
POLICY DISTRIBUTION
• Each switch can be set to Accept or Reject individual security policies
• The policies are manually distributed to fabric switches
• Fabric Wide Consistency Policy (Absent/Tolerant/Strict)
o Each fabric could have a consistency policy that would require automatic distribution of the
SCC and DCC policies only
o The PWD, IPFILTER, FCS, AUTH policies can only be manually distributed
Fabric-Wide Consistency Policy set to:
Distribution
Setting
Absent Tolerant Strict
Reject
Database is protected -
cannot be overwritten.
Might not match other
databases in the fabric.
Database is protected -
cannot be overwritten.
Might not match other
databases in the fabric.
Database is protected -
cannot be overwritten.
Might not match other
databases in the fabric.
Accept
(default)
• Database is not
protected - can be
overwritten.
• If the switch initiating
the distribute has a
strict or tolerant fabric-
wide policy, the switch-
local database can be
overwritten by a
distribute command
• Active database may
not always match other
databases in the fabric
• Database is not
protected
• Fabric may contain
switches running Fabric
OS v5.1.x and earlier
• Automatically distributes
activated changes to
other Fabric OS v5.2
switches
• Active database may
not always match other
databases in the fabric
• Database is not
protected
• Fabric can only contain
switches running Fabric
OS v5.2.0 or higher
• Automatically
distributes activated
changes to all switches
in the fabric
• Active database is the
same for all switches in
the fabric
Table 2: Policy Distribution