Administrators Guide (Supporting Fabric OS v7.3.0) Manual

The LEDs on the logical switch light up on the blades associated with the logical switch.
Virtual Fabrics overview
Virtual Fabrics is an architecture that virtualizes hardware boundaries. Traditionally, SAN design and
management is done at the granularity of a physical switch. Each switch and all the ports in the switch
act as a single fabric element that participates in a single fabric. Virtual Fabrics allows SAN design and
management to be done at the granularity of a port. This enables partitioning of a physical switch into
multiple logical switches, which may be organized into logical fabrics.
The following platforms are Virtual Fabrics-capable:
• Brocade DCX and DCX-4S
• Brocade 5300
• Brocade 5100
• Brocade 6510
• Brocade 6520
• Brocade 7800
• Brocade 7840
• Brocade DCX 8510-4
• Brocade DCX 8510-8
Virtual Fabrics cannot be configured or managed from Web Tools. Configuration and management is
done from either the Brocade Network Advisor, or the Fabric OS command line interface. For
information about configuring and managing Virtual Fabrics, refer to the Brocade Network Advisor
User Manual if you are using Brocade Network Advisor, or the Fabric OS Administrator’s Guide if you
are using the Fabric OS command line interface.
You can use Web Tools to view Virtual Fabrics and logical switch configurations.
Selecting a logical switch from the Switch View
You can log in to a specific logical switch, as described in Introducing Web Tools on page 19 , or you
can select a logical switch from the Switch View . If you do not log in to a specific logical switch, you
are presented with the default logical switch.
Under the Switch Information tab, Base Switch, Default Switch, and Allow XISL Use are specific
to VIrtual Fabrics. These options perform these functions:
• Base Switch indicates whether or not the logical switch can act as a base switch. A base switch is
a special logical switch that can be used for chassis interconnection. Each chassis may only
designate only one logical switch as a base switch.
• Default Switch indicates whether or not the logical switch is the default logical switch. The default
logical switch is equivalent to the normal, discovered physical switch topology. It is automatically
assigned fabric ID 128. If you do not log in to a specific logical switch using Options on the login
dialog box, the default logical switch displays in the Switch View.
• Allow XISL Use indicates whether or not the logical switch is allowed to connect to other logical
switches using an extended inter-switch link (XISL). Base switches may use XISLs. Dynamically
created logical switches can use the XISL for traffic, only if Allow XISL Use is enabled through the
CLI using the configure command.
To select a logical switch, perform the following steps.
1. Use the Logical Switch list to select the fabric ID.
Virtual Fabrics overview
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