Brocade Fabric Watch Administrator's Guide Supporting Fabric OS v6.0.0 (53-1000601-01, October 2007)

48 Fabric Watch Administrator’s Guide

53-1000601-01

Configuring switch status policy

The tasks for configuring a switch status policy are:

“Step 1: Plan and define your switch status policy” on page 49

“Step 2: Implement your switch status policy” on page 49

“Step 3: View your switch status policy” on page 50

Your switch status policy monitors the overall status of a switch based on several contributing

parameters. The policy parameter values determine how many failed or faulty units of each

contributor are allowed before triggering a status change in the switch from Healthy to Marginal or

Down. While some users find that the default settings suit their needs, others need to configure a

switch status policy due to unpredictable power outages, temperature changes, or redundancy

requirements, among other conditions.

You can configure your switch status policy to define the health of your switch. Generally speaking,

Fabric Watch defines the health of your switch using the following terms:

• Healthy

Every contributor is working and therefore healthy, or when the contributing parameter is not

being tracked for switch status; when the switch status policy parameter is zero.

• Marginal

One or more components are triggering a Warning alarm.

• Down

One or more contributors have failed.

Status events are integrated into Brocade Web Tools and Fabric Manager so that if the overall

status of your switch is Healthy, the switch color is green. If the overall switch status is Marginal,

then the switch color is yellow. Finally, if the overall switch status is Down, the switch color is red.

The overall status is calculated based on the most severe status of all contributors.

NOTE

Policy parameters with a value of zero are not considered when calculating the switch status.

See the Web Tools Administrator’s Guide for more details about configuring status events using

Web Tools.