Brocade Fabric Manager Administrator's Guide v6.1.0 (53-10000610-02, June 2008)

6 Fabric Manager Administrator’s Guide
53-10000610-02
Fabric and switch access
1
Administrative Domains
An Administrative Domain (Admin Domain) is a logical grouping of fabric elements that defines
what switches, ports, and devices you can view and modify. An Admin Domain is a filtered
administrative view of the fabric. The logical view presented within an Admin Domain does not hide
fabrics, chassis, switches, and slots; however, the attributes of switch ports and end devices are
filtered based on Admin Domain membership.
NOTE
Do not confuse an Admin Domain with the domain ID of a switch. They are two different identifiers.
Admin Domains are numbered from 0 through 255. This document refers to specific Admin
Domains using the format “ADn” where n is a number between 0 and 255.
This document uses the following Admin Domain concepts:
All Fabric Manager users must have access to AD0 and the physical fabric to monitor Admin
Domain-aware fabrics. If you do not have access to these Admin Domains, then you cannot log in to
the switch using Fabric Manager. If, after you log in, you lose access to the physical fabric, you can
no longer access the port configuration, Admin Domain administration, and Fabric Watch
functionality.
Fabric Manager displays each Admin Domain as a virtual fabric (see “Topology views” on page 85
for more information about how Admin Domains are displayed). Fabric Manager shows only Admin
Domain members that have been discovered. For example, if the Admin Domain membership list
has a device WWN that is not yet connected to the fabric (and so was never discovered by Fabric
Manager), this device is not displayed in the user interface.
The Admin Domain information is gathered initially during discovery. After the initial discovery, the
Admin Domain data is gathered in the following instances:
• When you run Discovery > Refresh, the Admin Domain data is gathered from the Fabric.
• For fabrics with Small and Medium polling definitions, the Admin Domain data is gathered by
default every 30 minutes.
AD0 A special Admin Domain that contains all switches, ports,
and devices that have not been put into other Admin
Domains.
AD255 A special Admin Domain that is an unfiltered view of the
entire physical fabric. AD255 is also referred to as the
physical fabric.
Admin Domain-capable fabric A fabric that runs Fabric OS v5.2.0 or later and has a valid
Advanced Zoning license, but has no Admin Domains other
than AD0 and AD255 (physical fabric).
Admin Domain-unaware fabric A fabric that:
• runs Fabric OS v5.1.x or earlier.
• runs Fabric OS v5.2.0 or later but does not have an
Advanced Zoning license.
Admin Domain-aware fabric A fabric with at least one user-defined Admin Domain
activated. User-defined Admin Domains include AD0, if you
have explicitly added members to it.
Physical fabric administrator A user with the Admin role and access to all Admin Domains
(AD0 through AD255).