Brocade Fabric Watch Administrator's Guide v6.1.0 (53-1000601-02, June 2008)

4 Fabric Watch Administrator’s Guide
53-1000601-02
Fabric Watch components
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Fabric Watch components
Fabric Watch uses a hierarchical organization to track the network device information it monitors.
There is a class, area, and element associated with every monitored behavior. Classes are the
highest level in the system, subdivided into one or more areas. Areas contain one or more
elements.
The following sections explain this hierarchy and its application within Fabric Watch.
Classes
Classes are high-level categories of elements. Classes are intentionally wide groupings of similar
fabric devices or fabric data.
Examples of classes include Port (which includes all physical ports on a switch), Security (which
includes information related to unauthorized login attempts), and Environment (which contains
information related to the internal temperature, supplied power and fan assemblies).
In some cases, classes are divided into subclasses. This additional level in the hierarchy increases
the flexibility of setting monitoring thresholds. You can use subclasses to add additional event
monitoring to fabric objects that meet the requirements of a subclass.
For example, ports connected to another switch can be monitored using both the Port class and
E_Port subclass. You can configure general port monitoring using the Port class and monitoring
specific to a type of port using the E_Port class. Ports connected to another switch can trigger
events based on either of these configurations. Ports that are not connected to another switch are
not affected by the additional monitoring configured into the E_Port class.
Table 1 describes the classes into which Fabric Watch groups all switch and fabric elements.
TABLE 1 Fabric Watch classes
Class Description
Environment Includes information about the physical environment in which the switch resides
and the internal environment of the switch. For example, an Environment-class
alarm alerts you to problems or potential problems with temperature, fans, and
power.
Fabric Groups areas of potential problems arising between devices, including interswitch
link (ISL) details, zoning, and traffic. A Fabric-class alarm alerts you to problems or
potential problems with interconnectivity.
Field Replaceable Unit (FRU) Monitors the status of FRUs and provides an alert when a part replacement is
needed. This class monitors states, not thresholds.
Performance Monitor Serves as a tuning tool. The Performance Monitor class groups areas that track the
source and destination of traffic. Use the Performance Monitor class thresholds
and alarms to determine traffic load and flow and to reallocate resources
appropriately.
The Performance Monitor class is divided into the areas AL_PA Performance
Monitor, EE (end-to-end) Performance Monitor, and Filter Performance Monitor.
Performance Monitoring is not supported on VE, EX, and VEX ports.