Users Guide

Restrictions and limitations
This section lists the restrictions, and limitations of the multiswitch fabric feature.
● The multiswitch feature does not support Virtual E-ports (VE), BB_credit configuration, autoport mode, static FC route,
zone merging, ESC exchange between switches, and switch port initialization.
● Only one vfabric is supported per switch in the multiswitch mode.
● Interoperability with other vendors, such as non-OS10 switches are not supported.
● Due to hardware limitations, multiswitch fabric feature does not support ECMP at the NPU level.
● Incremental update for shortest path route computation is not supported. The shortest path computation always runs for the
entire fabric.
● ACL entries that are installed for control and data traffic use statically reserved CAM entries. Dynamic ACL space allocation
is not supported.
● The switch supports zoning configurations like the F port mode. Configure the same zoning configurations on all switches in
the fabric to avoid the Logical Unit Numbers (LUNs) being lost, during topology changes.
NOTE: When you enable the multiswitch feature, the N port mode is disabled. The default port mode is the F port. During
the multiswitch fabric configuration, if you delete the E Port mode, the port mode resets to the default, F port mode.
Multiswitch Fabric (E Port) Limitations
The following limitations are applicable in 10.5.1:
● The multiswitch feature does not support Virtual E ports (VE), BB_credit configuration, autoport mode, static FC route,
zone merging, ESC exchange between switches, and switch port initialization.
● Only one vfabric is supported per switch in multiswitch mode.
● Interoperability with other vendors, such as non-OS10 switches are not supported.
● Due to hardware limitations, the multiswitch fabric feature does not support ECMP at the NPU level.
● Incremental update for shortest path route computation is not supported. The shortest path computation always runs for the
entire fabric.
● ACL entries that are installed for control and data traffic use statically reserved CAM entries. Dynamic ACL space allocation
is not supported.
● The switch supports zoning configurations like the F port mode. Configure the same zoning configurations on all switches in
the fabric to avoid the Logical Unit Numbers (LUNs) being lost, during topology changes.
Configure multiswitch fabric (E Port)
This section describes the procedure to configure multiswitch fabric (E Port).
Configuration notes
● When two different fabrics join and when both fabrics have the same domain ID configured, the reconfigure fabric (RCF)
operation occurs as the domain ID overlaps.
● The RCF operation results in traffic disruptions and after the RCF operation, each switch in the fabric gets a unique domain
ID from the principal switch.
● During the merge of conflicting domain IDs, the switch may perform an additional RCF to stabilize when the switch name
server entries exceed 700.
● It is recommended to not merge fabrics with conflicting preferred domain IDs.
● During a switch reboot, with conflicting preferred domain IDs, the switches first assign itself a configured domain ID.
● When the E Port links of the switch comes up, the RCF operation occurs again as the domain ID overlaps.
The following example shows a simple multiswitch setup that includes switch-1 and switch-2 with default configurations:
To enable the multiswitch mode, you must first disable the current mode. Configure switch-1 and switch-2 to configure the
multiswitch fabric.
Fibre Channel
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