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

Access Gateway Administrator’s Guide 47

53-1002156-01

Failover

Adding a preferred secondary N_Port (optional)

F_Ports automatically fail over to any available N_Port. Alternatively, you can specify a preferred

secondary N_Port in case the primary N_Port fails. If the primary N_Port goes offline, the F_Ports

fail over to the preferred secondary N_Port (if it is online), then re-enable. If the secondary N_Port is

offline, the F_Ports will disable. Define the preferred secondary N_Ports per F_Port. For example, if

two F_Ports are mapped to a primary N_Port, you can define a secondary N_Port for one of those

F_Ports and not define a secondary N_Port for the other F_Port. F_Ports must have a primary

N_Port mapped before a secondary N_Port can be configured.

1. Connect to the switch and log in using an account assigned to the admin role.

2. Enter the ag --prefset command with the “F_Port1;F_Port2; ...” N_Port options to add the

preferred secondary F_Ports to the specified N_Port.

The F_Ports must be enclosed in quotation marks and the port numbers must be separated by

a semicolon, as shown in the following example.

switch:admin> ag --prefset "3;9" 4

Preferred N_Port is set successfully for the F_Port[s]

NOTE

Preferred mapping is not allowed when Automatic Login Balancing mode is enabled for a port group.

All N_Ports are the same when Automatic Login Balancing mode is enabled.

Deleting F_Ports from a preferred secondary N_Port

1. Connect to the switch and log in using an account assigned to the admin role.

2. Enter the ag --prefdel command with the “F_Port1;F_Port2;...” N_Port options to delete

F_Ports from an N_Port.

The list of F_Ports must be enclosed in quotation marks. Port numbers must be separated by a

semicolon. In the following example, F_Ports 3 and 9 are deleted from preferred secondary

N_Port 4.

switch:admin> ag --prefdel "3;9" 4

Preferred N_Port is deleted successfully for the F_Port[s]

Failover with device mapping

Failover is handled similarly for port mapping and device mapping if devices are mapped to N_Port

groups. If a device is mapped to an N_Port in a group, and an N_Port goes offline, the devices

mapped to that N_Port will reconnect on the least-loaded online N_Ports in the group.

Enabling or disabling the Failover or Failback policies for N_Ports has no effect on device mapping.

A device will always fail over to an online N_Port in the port group, regardless of whether the

Failback policy is enabled for an N_Port or not. Whereas, with port mapping, if you disable the

Failover or Failback policy on an N_Port, the F_Port will not fail over or fail back to other N_Ports.

Failover behavior is different if a device is mapped to a specific N_Port instead of to an N_Port

group. If mapping a device to a specific N_Port, you can define a secondary N_Port that will be

used if the primary N_Port is offline. To maximize the device uptime, it is recommended to map the

device to a port group rather than to specific N_Ports.