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

Access Gateway Administrator’s Guide 65

53-1002156-01

Considerations for the Brocade 8000

This section provides information on differences in operation, Fabric OS command function, and

features on the Brocade 8000 when operating in Access Gateway mode.

Port mapping

The Brocade 8000 contains FCoE and Fibre Channel ports. In Access Gateway mode, the FCoE

ports are configured logically as F_Ports, while the Fibre Channel ports are configured as N_Ports.

For details on how this affects port mapping, refer to “Brocade 8000 mapping differences” on

page 14.

Policy and feature support

The following AG policies and features are not supported on the Brocade 8000:

• Connection to multiple fabrics. The Brocade 8000 in AG mode can only connect to one fabric.

• Access Gateway cascading.

NOTE

Access Gateway cascading is not supported on the Brocade 8000 Core AG (the Brocade 8000

is only supported on an Edge AG).

• Automatic Load Balancing

• Automatic Login Balancing

• Automatic Port Configuration Policy

• Persistent ALPA

• Device Load Balancing

• F-Port Static Mapping

Port trunking and QoS features

Because the Brocade 8000 has limited available buffers and port trunking and QoS require more

buffers than normal, consider the following points:

• Do not enable QoS by itself on more than six Fibre Channel ports at a time. If you attempt to

enable QoS on more than six ports, the Brocade 8000 may enter buffer-limited mode.

• To enable both trunking and QoS on the Brocade 8000, it is recommended that you enable

QoS first. If you enable trunking first, both features will compete for buffers and you will not be

able to enable QoS on more than two ports. If you enable QoS first, adequate buffers will be

available for trunking due to the function of QoS.

Managed Fabric Name Monitoring mode

Managed Fabric Name Monitoring (MFNM) mode is enabled by default on the Brocade 8000.

However, you can disable or enable this policy at any time. Enabling or disabling MFNM on one port

group enables or disables it for the entire switch. RASLOG messages are generated only if MFNM is

enabled on the entire switch and multiple fabrics are connected to the switch.