Specifications

3
3-28
McDATA Products in a SAN Environment - Planning Manual
Planning Considerations for Fibre Channel Topologies
— No response from attached switch - After a fabric is created,
each element in the fabric periodically verifies operation of all
attached switches and directors. An ISL segments if a switch
or director does not respond to a verification request.
— ELP retransmission failure timeout - A director or switch that
exhibits a hardware failure or connectivity problem cannot
transmit or receive Class F frames. The director or switch did
not receive a response to multiple exchange link parameters
(ELP) frames, did not receive a fabric login (FLOGI) frame,
and cannot join an operational fabric.
• Fabric services and state change notifications - In a multiswitch
fabric, director-provided services such as name service, registered
state change notifications (RSCNs), and zoning are provided on a
fabric-wide basis. For example, if a fabric-attached device queries
a director or switch name server to locate all devices that support
a specified protocol, the reply includes all fabric devices that
support the protocol that are in the same zone as the requesting
device, not just devices attached to the director or switch.
RSCNs are transmitted to all registered device N_Ports attached
to the fabric if either of the following occur:
— A fabric-wide event occurs, such as a director logging in to the
fabric, a director logging out of the fabric, or a reconfiguration
because of a director or ISL failure.
— A zoning configuration change.
• Zoning configurations for joined fabrics - In a multiswitch
fabric, zoning is configured on a fabric-wide basis, and any
change to the active zone set is applied to all directors and
switches. To ensure zoning is consistent across a fabric, the
following rules are enforced when two fabrics (zoned or
unzoned) join through an ISL.
— Fabric A unzoned and Fabric B unzoned - The fabrics join
successfully, and the resulting fabric remains unzoned.
— Fabric A zoned and Fabric B unzoned - The fabrics join
successfully, and fabric B automatically inherits the zoning
configuration from fabric A.
— Fabric A unzoned and Fabric B zoned - The fabrics join
successfully, and fabric A automatically inherits the zoning
configuration from fabric B.