User Manual

Fabric OS 5.0.0 procedures user guide 113
8 Administering ISL trunking
This chapter contains procedures for using the HP ISL Trunking licensed feature, which optimizes the use
of bandwidth by allowing a group of interswitch links to merge into a single logical link.
This chapter contains the following sections:
• Standard trunking criteria, page 113
• Fabric considerations, page 114
• Initializing trunking on ports, page 115
• Monitoring traffic, page 115
• Enabling and disabling ISL trunking, page 116
• Setting port speeds, page 117
• Displaying trunking information, page 119
• Trunking over extended fabrics, page 119
• Troubleshooting trunking problems, page 120
To use trunking, you must first install the ISL Trunking license. For details on obtaining and installing
licensed features, see ”Maintaining licensed features” on page 25.
For detailed information about trunking commands, refer to online help or the HP StorageWorks Fabric
OS 4.x command reference guide.
Standard trunking criteria
Observe the following criteria for standard distance trunking:
• There must be a direct connection between participating switches.
• Trunk ports must reside in the same port group.
• Trunk ports must run at the same speed (either 2 Gbps or 4 Gbps).
• Trunk ports must be set to the same ISL mode (L0 or LE). For details on these modes, see Table 4 on
page 31.
• Trunk ports must be E_Ports.
• Cable lengths for participating links should differ by no more than 30 meters.
• The switch.interopMode parameter must be set to 0. See ”Configuring interoperability mode” on
page 219 for information and procedures related to interoperability mode.
• The port ISL mode must be disabled (using the portislmode command).