Reference Guide

Fabric OS Administrator’s Guide 577
53-1002920-02
EX_Port trunking
24
NOTE
The L0 mode supports up to 5 km at 2 Gbps, up to 2 km at 4 Gbps, and up to 1 km at 8 Gbps.
The distance for the LS mode is static. You can specify any distance greater than 10 km.
The distance supported depends on the available buffers, the number of back-end ports, and the
number of ports that are offline. For more information on setting port speeds, refer to Chapter 3,
“Performing Advanced Configuration Tasks”.
EX_Port trunking
You can configure EX_Ports to use trunking just as you do regular E_Ports. EX_Port trunking
support is designed to provide the best utilization and balance of frames transmitted on each link
between the FC router and the edge fabric. You should trunk all ports connected to the same edge
fabrics.
The FC router front domain has a higher node WWN—derived from the FC router—than that of the
edge fabric. Therefore, the FC router front domain initiates the trunking protocol on the EX_Port.
After initiation, the first port from the trunk group that comes online is designated as the master
port. The other ports that come online on the trunk group are considered to be the slave ports.
Adding or removing a slave port does not cause frame drop; however, removing a slave port causes
the loss of frames in transit.
If router port cost is used with EX_Port trunking, the master port and slave ports share the router
port cost of the master port.
The restrictions for EX_Port frame trunking are the same as for E_Ports—all the ports must be
adjacent to each other, in the clearly marked groups on the front of the switch.
ATTENTION
EX_Port trunking should be enabled only if the entire configuration is running Fabric OS v5.2.0 or
later.
Refer to Chapter 26, “Using FC-FC Routing to Connect Fabrics,” for more information about
EX_Ports and the FC router.
Masterless EX_Port trunking
EX_Port trunking is masterless except for EX_Ports on Brocade DCX and DCX 8510 Backbones.
For the Backbones, Virtual Fabrics must be enabled for masterless EX_Port trunking to take effect.
For the fixed-port switches, Virtual Fabrics can be enabled or disabled.
If masterless EX_Port trunking is not in effect and the master port goes offline, the entire
EX_Port-based trunk re-forms and is taken offline for a short period of time. If there are no other
links to the edge fabric from the Backbone, the master port going offline may cause a traffic
disruption in the backbone fabric.
LD 500 km 0 0
LS Static See note below
TABLE 90 Trunking over long distance for the Brocade Backbones and blades (Continued)
Long-distance mode Distance Number of 2-Gbps ports Number of 4-Gbps ports