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

Fabric Watch Administrator’s Guide 49

53-1000601-02

Switch status policy configuration

The 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 because of various conditions, such as unpredictable power outages,

temperature changes, or redundancy requirements.

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

- when every contributor is working

- when the contributing parameter is not being tracked

- 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.

Switch status policy planning

Before entering the switchStatusPolicySet command, plan your switch status policy. How many

fans must fail before you consider a switch Marginal? Look at the needs of your system along with

the factors that affect its monitors.

Table 13 lists the monitors in a switch and identifies the factors

that affect their health. Note that not all switches use the monitors listed in Table 13.