Brocade SAN Glossary for Fabric OS v6.0.0

Brocade SAN Glossary 1/29/2008 Page 3 of 29

AW_TOV Arbitration Wait Timeout Value. The minimum time an arbitrating L_Port

waits for a response before beginning loop initialization.

Backbone fabric A Fibre Channel fabric that enables scalable metaSANs by allowing the

networking of multiple FC routers connected to the backbone fabric via

E_Port interfaces. Devices attached to Multiprotocol Routers via F_Port or

FL_Port, or imported via the iSCSI Gateway Service, are also considered part

of the backbone.

Bandwidth The transmission capacity of the cable, link, or system.

BB_Credit Buffer-to-buffer credit; used to determine how many frames can be sent to

the recipient.

Beacon A tool in which all of the port LEDs on a switch are set to flash from one side

of the switch to the other to enable identification of an individual switch in a

large fabric.

BER Bit Error Rate. The rate at which bits are expected to be received in error.

Expressed as a ratio of error bits to total bits transmitted.

Bit synchronization The condition is which a receiver is delivering retimed serial data at a

required bit error rate.

Bloom The code name given to the third-generation Brocade 2 Gbit/sec ASIC. This

ASIC is used in Brocade switches 3000 series and beyond.

Broadcast Sending a transmission to all Nx_Ports on a fabric.

Boot code Software that initialized the system environment during the early phase of

the boot up process. For example, boot code may determine the amount of

available memory and how to access it.

Boot flash Flash (temporary) memory that stores the boot code and boot parameters.

Brocade Data Migration Manager (DMM)

Brocade application that provides hardware-assisted data migration from

one storage device to another across a Brocade switch; enables the

migration of data from multiple storage devices simultaneously across

multiple fabrics; layered on the Brocade Storage Application Services (SAS).

Brocade DCX Backbone A backbone-class platform designed to operate at the core of the Brocade

Data Center Fabric (DCF). The Brocade DCX enables massive consolidation,

multi-protocol integration, and simplified management to dramatically

reduce operational and capital costs. It provides true interoperability with

existing SANs. See also Adaptive Networking and data center fabric.

Brocade Fabric Manager (FM)

Optionally licensed Brocade application that resides on a host computer and

enables fabric-wide management for multiple fabrics in a geographically-

dispersed location via a graphical user interface.