Users Guide

Fabric OS Administrator’s Guide 545
53-1002920-02
ICLs for the Brocade DCX 8510 Backbone family
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• For High Availability, you should have at least two ICLs from each core blade. Figure 73 shows
two Brocade DCX 8510-8 chassis connected with full redundancy using four ICL connections.
FIGURE 73 Minimum configuration for 64 Gbps ICLs
• The maximum number of ICLs between two Brocade DCX 8510-4 chassis or between a
Brocade DCX 8510-8 and a Brocade DCX 8510-4 is 16.
The maximum number of ICLs between two Brocade DCX 8510-8 chassis is 32.
Because the FSPF routing logic uses only the first 16 paths to come online, only 16 ICLs are
utilized. With Virtual Fabrics, however, you can define two logical switches on the chassis and
have 16 ICLs in each.
NOTE
Brocade recommends that you have a maximum of eight ICLs connected to the same
neighboring domain, with a maximum of four ICLs from each core blade.
• The ICLs can connect to either core blade in the neighboring chassis. Unlike the copper ICLs,
the QSFP ICLs do not need to be cross-connected.
NOTE
QSFP ICLs and ISLs in the same logical switch and connected to the same neighboring switch are
not supported. This is a topology restriction with 16 Gbps ICLs and any ISLs that are E_Ports or
VE_Ports.
If Virtual Fabrics is enabled, you can have ICLs and ISLs between a pair of Brocade DCX 8510
chassis if the ICLs are in a different logical switch than the ISLs.
ICL trunking on the Brocade DCX 8510-8 and DCX 8510-4
ICL trunks form automatically but additional licenses may be required for enabling all ICL ports or
for larger ICL configurations. For more information about ICL licensing options, refer to Chapter 21,
“Administering Licensing”.
Each Quad Small Form-Factor Pluggable (QSFP) cable has four ports, each terminating on a
different application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). These ports cannot form a trunk with each
other, but can form trunks only with corresponding ports on another QSFP.
Each core blade in the Brocade DCX 8510-8 contains 16 ICL trunk groups. Each core blade in the
Brocade DCX 8510-4 contains 8 ICL trunk groups. Each ICL trunk group contains 4 user ports, one
from each QSFP.
Domain 1
DCX 8510-8
Domain 2
DCX 8510-8