Brocade Access Gateway Administrator's Guide - Supporting Fabric OS v5.2.1 (53-1000430-01)

1-2 Access Gateway Administrator’s Guide
Publication Number: 53-1000430-01
Access Gateway port types
1
The following figure compares a configuration that connects eight hosts to the fabric using Brocade
Access Gateway to the same configuration with standard fabric switches.
Figure 1-1 Access Gateway and fabric switch comparison
The difference between the fabric switch (Fabric OS native mode) and Brocade Access Gateway is as
follows:
• The Fabric OS switch is a part of the fabric; it requires two through four times as many physical
ports, consumes fabric resources, and can connect to a Brocade-based fabric only.
• Brocade Access Gateway is outside the fabric; it reduces the number of switches on the fabric and
the number of required physical ports. You can connect Brocade Access Gateway to either a
Brocade-, Cisco-, or McDATA-based fabric.
Access Gateway port types
Brocade Access Gateway differs from a typical fabric switch because it connects to the fabric using
node ports (N_Ports). Typically fabric switches connect to the enterprise fabric using ISL (InterSwitch
Link) ports, such as an E_Port.
The following defines the Fibre Channel (FC) port terms used in this manual:
• F_Port, fabric port. A switch port that connects a host, HBA, or storage device to the SAN.
• N_Port, node port. A host, HBA, or storage device port that connects to the F_Port of the
fabric switch.
Note
When using a Brocade blade server embedded switch in Access Gateway mode, most switch features are
no longer applicable. These features include Admin Domains, Advanced Performance Monitoring,
direct connection to SAN target devices, Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop support, Fabric Manager,
FICON, IP over FC, ISL Trunking, Extended Fabrics, Management Services, Name Services (SNS),
port mirroring, Secure Fabric OS, SMI-S, and Zoning. These switch features are available in the default
switch mode of operation.