Technical data

DATA CENTER TECHNICAL BRIEF
Operational Simplicity: Automating and Simplifying SAN Provisioning 7 of 15
ValidatingSANRobustnessandPerformance
Validating the physical infrastructure is a good rst step to ensure maximum availability, but users also need
to know if the SAN will deliver the required performance. Flow Generator, available with Brocade Fabric Vision
technology, provides a built-in test trafc generator for pre-testing and validating Gen 5 Fibre Channel SAN
infrastructures, including internal connections within the switch, for robustness before deploying applications.
With Flow Generator, users can congure a Gen 5 Fibre Channel capable port as a simulated device that can
generate trafc for specied ows, transmitting frames at full 16 Gbps line rate. It allows users to emulate
a Gen 5 Fibre Channel SAN without actually having any 16 Gbps hosts, targets, or SAN testers, and validate
hardware components, end-to-end connectivity, and ow performance to ensure that it meets the required
Service Level Agreement (SLA). Figure 4 illustrates the Flow Generator functionality. In this example, hosts H1
and H2 and targets T1 and T2 are not physical devices; they are simulated devices created by Flow Generator.
fig04_Operational_Simplicity_v2
T1
T2
H1
H2
Figure 4. Flow Generator simulates hosts and targets to validate SAN performance and robustness.
Flow Generator allows a Gen 5 Fibre Channel ASIC port to generate trafc, creating load from an ingress point
of the fabric, all the way to the target egress switch port. This tests the complete path of the trafc within
the fabric, including any ISLs/UltraScale ICLs as well as the backplane connections within each switch. Flow
Generator allows users to customize ows with a different payload size, data pattern, etc. to simulate actual
application trafc, and activate multiple ows in the fabric to fully exercise the SAN infrastructure.
Flow Generator displays statistics related to the created ows, providing information on the RX Frame
Count (measured on the ingress port) and TX Frame Count (measured on the egress port) to establish a
performance baseline for ows and identify any ows that need attention. Users can use Flow Monitor, also
available with Fabric Vision technology, to get additional statistics associated with the Flow Generator created
ows. Users can also use MAPS (Monitoring and Alerting Policy Suite) for threshold-based monitoring and
alerting of Flow Generator ows.
How Does Flow Generator Work?
Prior to creating and activating the ows, administrators use the Flow Generator control command to
congure the source device and the destination device ports as Simulator Ports (SIM Ports). Once the
SIM Ports are established, the Port ID and Worldwide Names associated with the SIM Ports are used to
create the Flow Generator ows.
Flow Generator can create unidirectional ows from a single source to a single destination, from a single
source to multiple destinations, or from a single source to all zoned destinations. Users can test bi-directional
ows between a single pair of devices by dening a second set of ows with the source and destination ports
reversed. Figure 5 illustrates uni-directional Flow Generator ows from a single source to multiple destinations.