Brocade Fabric OS Administrator's Guide Supporting Fabric OS v6.3.0 (53-1001336-02, November 2009)

512 Fabric OS Administrator’s Guide
53-1001336-02
M-EOS fabrics overview
A
The Fibre Channel routing feature for M-EOS interoperability is not a licensed feature.
NOTE
McDATA Open Mode is for use only by M-EOS switches. Fabric OS switches in Open Mode cannot be
part of the M-EOS edge fabric in a non-merged SAN.
Connected SANs provide additional functionality not possible with segregated SANs. Some of these
functions are as follows:
• Island consolidation—Uses the Fabric OS v6.0 or later FC router to connect isolated M-EOS and
Fabric OS fabrics and share devices.
• Backup consolidation—Consolidates backup solutions across Fabric OS and M-EOS fabrics.
• Manageable large-scale storage network—Uses the Fabric OS v6.0 or later FC router to localize
traffic while connecting devices in the metaSAN. This provides a large number of fabrics with a
large number of devices.
• Sharing across an FCIP link—Shares devices between Fabric OS and M-EOS fabrics over a
campus Ethernet or over long-distance IP links beyond 1000 km.
• Sharing across a long-distance FC link—Shares devices between Fabric OS fabrics over
long-distance FC links as far as 300 km.
• LUN sharing—Uses your high-end RAID array connected to an M-series to share targets with a
Fabric OS fabric; just connect one Intrepid series port to an FC router EX_Port and the one
EX_Port to the Fabric OS edge fabric.
• LSAN zone database binding—Increases FCR scalability to support more FC routers in the
backbone and support more devices in the metaSAN.
The connectivity limitations of a metaSAN containing Fabric OS and M-EOS fabrics are defined by
the scalability of each individual fabric. The latest scalability information can be found at the
Brocade Connect Web site at www.brocade.com. Refer to the M-EOS fabric documentation for
scalability considerations.
2. Fabric OS v5.1.0 and M-E/OSc v4.1.1, v5.1.2, 6.2.0 can interoperate through the FC routing capability of
the SilkWorm AP7420 only. Fabric OS and M-E/OSc v7.1.3 can interoperate through the FC routing capability
of the SilkWorm AP7420, Brocade 7500, or FR4-18i blade. Fabric OS and M-E/OSc v8.0.0 and v9.2.0 can
interoperate through the FC routing capability of the Brocade 7500, or FR4-18i blade.
TABLE 95 Fabric OS and M-EOSn interoperability compatibility matrix
1
1. Both Open and McDATA Fabric modes are supported.
Fabric OS Versions of M-EOSn (i10k)
v9.2.0 v9.6.2 v9.8.0 v9.9.0
v5.3.0YesNoNoNo
v6.0.0 No Yes No No
v6.1.0 No Yes No No
v6.1.1 Yes No No
v6.1.1_enc Yes No No
v6.2.0 No Yes Yes Yes