Administrators Guide (Supporting Fabric OS v7.3.0) User Manual

Fibre Channel standards as other E_Ports. However, the router terminates EX_Ports rather than
allowing different fabrics to merge as would happen on a switch with regular E_Ports. An EX_Port
cannot be connected to another EX_Port.
F_Port -- A fabric port that is assigned to fabric-capable devices, such as SAN storage devices.
G_Port -- A generic port that acts as a transition port for non-loop fabric-capable devices.
L_Port or FL_Port -- A loop or fabric loop port that connects loop devices. L_Ports are associated
with private loop devices and FL_Ports are associated with public loop devices.
M_Port -- A mirror port that is configured to duplicate (mirror) the traffic passing between a specified
source port and destination port. This is only supported for pairs of F_Ports. Refer to the Fabric OS
Troubleshooting and Diagnostics Guide for more information on port mirroring.
U_Port -- A universal Fibre Channel port. This is the base Fibre Channel port type, and all
unidentified or uninitiated ports are listed as U_Ports.
VE_Port -- A virtual E_Port that is a gigabit Ethernet switch port configured for an FCIP tunnel.
VEX_Port -- A virtual EX_Port that connects a Fibre Channel router to an edge fabric. From the
point of view of a switch in an edge fabric, a VEX_Port appears as a normal VE_Port. It follows the
same Fibre Channel protocol as other VE_Ports. However, the router terminates VEX_Ports rather
than allowing different fabrics to merge as would happen on a switch with regular VE_Ports.
Backbone port blades
Because Backbones contain interchangeable port blades, their procedures differ from those for fixed-
port switches. For example, fixed-port models identify ports only by the port number, while Backbones
identify ports by slot/port notation
NOTE
For detailed information about the Brocade DCX and DCX 8510 Backbone families, refer to the
respective hardware reference manuals.
The different blades that can be inserted into a chassis are described as follows:
Control processor (CP) blades contain communication ports for system management, and are used
for low-level, platform-wide tasks.
Core blades are used for intra-chassis switching as well as interconnecting two Backbones.
Port blades are used for host, storage, and interswitch connections.
Application (AP) blades are used for Fibre Channel Application Services and Routing Services,
FCIP, Converged Enhanced Ethernet, and encryption support.
NOTE
On each port blade, a particular port must be represented by both slot number and port number.
The Brocade DCX and DCX 8510-8 each have 12 slots that contain control processor, core, port, and
AP blades:
Slot numbers 6 and 7 contain CPs.
Slot numbers 5 and 8 contain core blades.
Slot numbers 1 through 4 and 9 through 12 contain port and AP blades.
The Brocade DCX-4S and DCX 8510-4 each have 8 slots that contain control processor, core, port,
and AP blades:
Slot numbers 4 and 5 contain CPs.
Slot numbers 3 and 6 contain core blades.
Slot numbers 1 and 2, and 7 and 8 contain port and AP blades.
Backbone port blades
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