Brocade Access Gateway Administrator's Guide Supporting Fabric OS v7.0.0 (53-1002156-01, April 2011)

Access Gateway Administrator’s Guide 25
53-1002156-01
N_Port configurations
2
NOTE
Access Gateway algorithms reduce the chances of PID collisions, but they cannot be totally
eliminated. In some cases, you may be able to configure your virtual or physical fabrics to
further reduce PID collisions.
• Device mapping is not supported when firmware is downgraded to Fabric OS v6.3.x or earlier.
You must delete device mappings before downgrading or disable Device Load Balancing.
• Static and dynamic device mapping are only supported on the edge module in a cascaded
Access Gateway configuration.
• When mapping devices to a port group, make sure that all ports in the group have the same
NPIV login limit. If some ports have a lower login limit than the other ports, and there are many
logins to the group, some devices will repeatedly attempt to connect to the device with the
lower limit (because it has the fewest logins) and fail to connect.
N_Port configurations
By default, on embedded switches, only the internal ports of Access Gateway are configured as
F_Ports. All external ports are configured (locked) as N_Ports. On standalone switches with AG
support, a preset number of ports are locked as N_Ports, and the rest of the ports operate as
standard F_Ports. Although some ports are locked as N_Ports, these ports can be converted to
F_Ports. For example, Figure 7 shows a host connected to external ports of an embedded switch
with the switch in AG mode. To convert an N_Port to an F_Port, first remove all the F_Ports that are
mapped to that N_Port, then unlock the port from N_Port state. Finally, define a map for the port. It
is highly recommended that all F_Ports mapped to the N_Port first be remapped to other N_Ports
before converting the N_Port to an F_Port. Also note that if the Automatic Port Configuration (APC)
policy is enabled, the port conversion is done automatically and no user intervention is necessary.
For more information on which ports are locked as N_Ports by default, see Table 5 on page 12.