HP B-series Fabric OS 6.3.2e Release Notes (5697-1816, March 2012) - includes all 6.3.2x versions

• HP recommends that Spanning Tree Protocol and its variants be disabled on CEE interfaces
that are connected to a server.
• The Fabric Provided MAC Address (FPMA) and Fibre Channel Identifier (FCID) assigned to a
VN_Port cannot be associated with any front-end CEE port on which the FLOGI was received.
• LLDP neighbor information may be released before the timer expires when DCBX is enabled
on a CEE interface. This occurs only when the CEE interface state changes from active to any
other state. When the DCBX is not enabled, the neighbor information is not released until the
timer expires, regardless of the interface state.
• The FCoE login group name should be unique in a fabric-wide FCoE Login Management
Configuration. The merge logic is designed to modify the login group name during merge
when login group names in participating configurations conflict with each other. The
Organizationally Unique Identifiers (OUI) of 00051E or 000533 (phased in beginning in
April 2010) are being used by Brocade while assigning the WWNs to 2408 FCoE Converged
Network Switches, DC SAN Backbone Directors, and DC04 SAN Directors, which would
make only the last three bytes different for any two 2408 FCoE Converged Network Switches,
DC SAN Backbone Directors, or DC04 SAN Directors. Considering this assignment method,
the merge logic would rename the login group by including the last three bytes of the WWN
in the login group name, so that they are unique in the merged configuration.
• For switches having different OUI indexes from the eight assigned to Brocade (for example,
00051E and 006069), WWNs can differ in more than three bytes. In this case, after a normal
merge and a rename, per the logic described above, login group names can be the same for
WWNs differing only in OUIs. The merge logic would drop one of the login groups to satisfy
the requirement to keep the login group name unique in the fabric-wide configuration.
• Ethernet switch services must be explicitly enabled using the command fosconfig –enable
ethsw before powering on a DC SAN Director Switch 10/24 FCoE Blade. Failure to do so
causes the blade to be faulted (fault 9).
• To support nondisruptive firmware upgrades on the DC SAN Backbone Director/DC04 SAN
Director, a new service, ethsw, is being introduced to enable Ethernet switching on the DC
SAN Director Switch 10/24 FCoE Blade in Fabric OS 6.3. LAN switching is disabled by
default in Fabric OS 6.3. The user must explicitly enable Ethernet switch service using the
command fosconfig –enable ethsw to prevent FC traffic interruption.
• Upgrading DC SAN Backbone Director/DC04 SAN Director with DC SAN Director 10/24
FCoE blade from Fabric OS 6.x to 6.3 is nondisruptive. You can enable ethsw after upgrading
without interrupting FC traffic. Upgrading firmware on the 2408 FCoE Converged Network
Switch disrupts the FC traffic.
• For HP DC SAN or DC04 SAN Directors with one or more SAN Director Switch 10/24 FCoE
blades installed, downgrading or upgrading the Fabric OS 6.3 firmware to another version
disrupts traffic through the blades. HA Failover of CP blades in either of these directors disrupts
traffic through the 10/24 FCoE blades.
• Upgrades from Fabric OS 6.3 to future releases will be nondisruptive to data traffic and will
have behavior similar to a CP failover; ethsw remains unchanged.
• Downgrade from Fabric OS 6.3 to 6.1.2_cee1 is disruptive if ethsw is enabled on Fabric
OS 6.3.
• Downgrade from Fabric OS 6.3 to 6.1.2_cee1 is nondisruptive if ethsw has never been
enabled with Fabric OS 6.3.
• HA Failover of CP blades in DC SAN Backbone or DC04 SAN Director also results in disruption
of traffic through the 10/24 blades.
• Connecting a 2408 FCoE Converged Network Switch to an FCR-capable switch with
fcrbcast config enabled will cause a storm of broadcast traffic, resulting in termination
of iswitchd.
Important notes and recommendations 25