Brocade SAN Glossary for Fabric OS v6.0.0

Brocade SAN Glossary 1/29/2008 Page 21 of 29
Port-based routing A routing policy in which the choice of routing path is based on the incoming
port and the destination domain. To optimize port-based routing, the
Dynamic Load Sharing (DLS) feature can be enabled to balance the load
across the available output ports in a domain.
Port card A hardware component that provides a platform for field-replaceable, hot-
swappable ports.
Port group A group of adjacent ports that share a common pool of frame buffers for
long-distance connections.
Port-level zoning Defines a zone member by domain port, which is the physical port to which
the member is connected.
Port log A record of all activity on a switch, kept in volatile memory.
Port log dump A view of what happens on a switch from the switch's point of view. The
command used to read the Port Log is portLogDump.
Port mirroring A feature that enables the configuration of a switch port as an analyzer port
to mirror specific source and destination port traffic passing through any
switch port, in other words, it enables non-disruptive traffic analysis.
Port_name A unique 64-bit character identifier assigned to a Fibre Channel port and
communicated during login and port discovery.
Ports On Demand (POD) Optionally licensed feature available on certain Brocade switches; when
switches are shipped with some but not all of the physical ports activated, a
POD license can be used to activate some or all of the remaining ports.
POST Power On Self Test. A routine that the switch performs to test its
components.
PPID Unique static identifier for each blade in a bladed server; resides on a
printed label and on an electronic tag on the card.
Primary FCS switch Primary Fabric Configuration Server switch. In Brocade Secure Fabric OS,
actively manages security and configurations for all switches in the fabric.
Primitive sequence Ordered sets that indicate or start state changes on the transport medium
and require at least three consecutive occurrences to trigger a response.
Primitive signals Ordered sets that indicate actions or events and require just one occurrence
to trigger a response. Idle and R_RDY are used in all three topologies, ARB,
OPN CLS, and MRK are used in Arbitrated Loop.
Principal switch The first switch to boot up in the fabric; ensures unique Domain IDs amongst
other roles.
Private device A device that supports loop and can understand 8-bit addresses but does
not log into the fabric.
Private loop An Arbitrated Loop device with no participating FL_Port.
Private loop device An Arbitrated Loop device with no fabric attachment.
Private NL_Port An NL_Port on a public or private loop; it only communicates with other
ports on the loop, not with the fabric.