Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switch Fabric Manager Software Configuration Guide, NX-OS 4.0 (OL-16598-01, June 2008)

CHAPTER
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26-1
Nexus 5000 Series Switch Fabric Manager Software Configuration Guide
OL-16598-01
26
Configuring Fabric Configuration Servers
This chapter describes the Fabric Configuration Server (FCS) feature provided in the Nexus 5000 Series
switches. It includes the following sections:
• Information About FCS, page 26-1
• Displaying FCS Discovery, page 26-3
• Displaying FCS Elements, page 26-3
• Creating an FCS Platform, page 26-4
• Displaying FCS Fabric Ports, page 26-5
• Default Settings, page 26-6
Information About FCS
The Fabric Configuration Server (FCS) provides discovery of topology attributes and maintains a
repository of configuration information of fabric elements. A management application is usually
connected to the FCS on the switch through an N port. The FCS views the entire fabric based on the
following objects:
• Interconnect element (IE) object—Each switch in the fabric corresponds to an IE object. One or
more IE objects form a fabric.
• Port object—Each physical port in an IE corresponds to a port object. This includes the switch ports
(xE and F ports) and their attached N ports.
• Platform object—A set of nodes may be defined as a platform object to make it a single manageable
entity. These nodes are end-devices (host systems, storage subsystems) attached to the fabric.
Platform objects reside at the edge switches of the fabric.
Each object has its own set of attributes and values. A null value may also be defined for some attributes.
In the Nexus 5000 Series switch environment, a fabric may consist of multiple VSANs. One instance of
the FCS is present per VSAN.
FCS supports the discovery of virtual devices. The fcs virtual-device-add command, entered in FCS
configuration submode, allows you to discover virtual devices in a particular VSAN or in all VSANs.
If you have attached a management application to a switch, all the frames directed towards the FCS in
the switch are part of the port VSAN in the switch port (F port). Your view of the management
application is limited only to this VSAN. However, information about other VSANs that this switch is
part of can be obtained either through the SNMP or CLI.