Fabric OS Administrator's Guide v7.0.0 (53-1002148-02, June 2011)

480 Fabric OS Administrator’s Guide

53-1002148-02

EX_Port frame trunking configuration

You can configure EX_Ports to use frame-based trunking just as you do regular E_Ports. EX_Port

frame trunking support is designed to provide the best utilization and balance of frames

transmitted on each link between the FC router and the edge fabric. You should trunk all ports

connected to the same edge fabrics.

The FC router front domain has a higher node WWN—derived from the FC router—than that of the

edge fabric. Therefore, the FC router front domain initiates the trunking protocol on the EX_Port.

After initiation, the first port from the trunk group that comes online is designated as the master

port. The other ports that come online on the trunk group are considered the slave ports. Adding or

removing a slave port does not cause frame drop; however, removing a slave port causes the loss

of frames in transit.

The restrictions for EX_Port frame trunking are the same as for E_Ports—all the ports must be

adjacent to each other using the clearly marked groups on the front of the product.

ATTENTION

This feature should be enabled only if the entire configuration is running Fabric OS v5.2.0 or later.

If router port cost is used with EX_Port trunking, the master port and slave ports share the router

port cost of the master port.

For information about setting up E_Port trunking on an edge fabric, see Chapter 21, “Managing

Trunking Connections,” in this guide.

LSAN zone configuration

An LSAN consists of zones in two or more edge or backbone fabrics that contain the same devices.

LSANs essentially provide selective device connectivity between fabrics without forcing you to

merge those fabrics. FC routers provide multiple mechanisms to manage inter-fabric device

connectivity through extensions to existing switch management interfaces. You can define and

manage LSANs using Brocade Advanced Zoning.

Use of Admin Domains with LSAN zones and FCR

You can create LSAN zones as a physical fabric administrator or as an individual Admin Domain

(AD) administrator. The LSAN zone can be part of the root zone database or the AD zone database.

FCR harvests the LSAN zones from all administrative domains. If both edge fabrics have the

matching LSAN zones and both devices are online, FCR triggers a device import. To support legacy

applications, WWNs are reported based on the administrative domain context. As a result, you

must not use the network address authority (NAA) field in the WWN to detect an FC router. LSAN

zone enforcement in the local fabric occurs only if the administration domain member list contains

both of the devices (local and imported device) specified in the LSAN zone.

For more information, see Chapter 17, “Managing Administrative Domains”.