958-000288-010, August 2005)

For customers who want to add a second-generation switch to their existing SAN, but

are not ready to upg rade their SAN from 5.x to 06.02.00, there is a downgrade

ﬁrmware version for each of these edge switches which pro vides compatibility with a

SAN running 05.02.00.

Firmware 05.03.01-01 is available for the Edge Switch 2/24, and ﬁrmware

05.05.01-01isavailablefortheEdgeSwitch2/12.Theseversionsareinstalledonlyon

the Edge Switch 2 /24 and Edge Switch 2 / 12, and only when these switches a re plac ed

in a M-Series SAN running 05.02.00 ﬁrmware. A copy of these versions of ﬁrmware,

are contained on the HP StorageWorks edge switch documentation and ﬁrmware CD

(Part Number 524-000001-005).

Reinstalling feature licenses

Feature licenses (or keys) must be reinstalled after performing a factory reset on a

director to regain use of the licensed features (e.g., SANtegrity Binding) .

CTP controls port lights

Port lights on the edge switch and d irector products are controlled by the C TP

functionality. Certain activities such as ﬁrmware updates, I PLing the CTP, or switching

over to the backup CTP (director) can cause these port lights to extinguish momentarily

until control is reasserted by the CTP. The actual Fibre Channel trafﬁcisnotaffected

during these times.

BB_Credit Allocation for ports

Firmware 07.00.00 supports the ability to allocate a speciﬁc number of buffer credits

per port. This feature provides beneﬁt primarily in the Edge Switch 2/12 and 2/2 4

switches, where a single pool of buffers is shared among all ports. Users will now be

able to allocate buffer credits only where needed. For the Director 2/64, Director

2/140

, and Edge Switch 2/32 switches, this enhancement s imply allows more granular

conﬁ

guration options for users who want com plete conﬁguration control.

NVRAM caching

All writes to non-volatile m emory random access m em ory (NVRAM), which stores

conﬁguration data, are now cached to prevent possible corruption of information. Prior

to ﬁrmware 07.00.00, a small window existed where a switch power-down during an

NVRAM write could enable the conﬁgu ration default settings when the switch is powered

back on. All switches and d irectors are now protected from potential interruptions to

NVRAM updates.

Robust large fabrics

umerous low-level enhancements and optim izations have been mad e to improve the

stability of directors and switches in fabrics containing high populations of devices.