HP StorageWorks Fabric OS 6.2 administrator guide (5697-0016, May 2009)

174 Managing virtual fabrics

Figure 8 Switch before and after enabling Virtual Fabrics

After you enable Virtual Fabrics, you can create up to eight Logical Switches, depending on the switch

model.

Figure 9 shows a Virtual Fabrics-enabled switch before and after it is divided into Logical Switches. Before

you create Logical Switches, the chassis appears as a single switch (default Logical Switch). After you

create Logical Switches, the chassis appears as multiple independent Logical Switches. All of the ports

continue to belong to the default Logical Switch until you explicitly move them to other Logical Switches.

The default Logical Switch always exists. You can add and delete other Logical Switches, but you cannot

delete the default Logical Switch unless you disable Virtual Fabrics.

Figure 9 Switch before and after creating Logical Switches

Logical Switches and fabric IDs

When you create a Logical Switch, you must assign it a fabric ID (FID). The fabric ID uniquely identifies

each Logical Switch within a chassis and indicates to which fabric the Logical Switch belongs. You cannot

define multiple Logical Switches with the same fabric ID within the chassis.

In Figure 10 on page 175, Logical Switches 2, 3, 4, and 5 are assigned FIDs of 1, 15, 8, and 20,

respectively. These Logical Switches belong to different fabrics, even though they are in the same physical

chassis. For example, you could not assign Logical Switch 5 a fabric ID of 15, because Logical Switch 3 is

Before enabling Virtual Fabrics After enabling Virtual Fabrics

Physical chassis

Default logical switch

Physical chassis

P9P0

Before logical switch creation After logical switch creation

Default logical switch

Physical chassis

P0 P9

Logical switch 4

Logical switch 1

(Default logical switch)

P7P5

Logical switch 2

Logical switch 3