53-1004106-15 Installation Guide
Brocade
®
X6-4 Director Hardware Installation Guide
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Connectivity with another Brocade SX6 extension blade or the Brocade 7840 Extension Switch.
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Multiple logical extension tunnels with maximum tunnel bandwidth up to 40GbE (FCIP mode) allow for scalable
connections between sites.
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The Extension Trunking feature allows multiple IP source and destination address pairs (defined as circuits) through
multiple 10GbE or 40GbE interfaces to provide a high bandwidth extension tunnel and lossless failover resiliency. In
addition, each extension circuit supports four QoS classes (class-F, high, medium, and low priority), each as a TCP
connection.
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The ARL feature meets the minimum bandwidth guarantee for each tunnel while fully utilizing the available network
bandwidth without adverse throughput performance impact at a high traffic load.
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Hardware-based compression delivers the ability to maximize throughput over lower bandwidth links in the wide-area
network, optimizing the cost efficiencies of FCIP. The SX6 blade compresses FC frames before they are encapsulated
into FCIP packets.
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Key protocol features are enabled in the FCIP implementation to optimize the performance of extension over IP
networks, including WAN Optimized TCP (WO-TCP), 9K jumbo frame, and end-to-end Path MTU auto-discovery.
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Hardware-based IPsec supports a mix of secure and non-secure tunnels on the same Ethernet port, jumbo frames,
and VLAN tagged connections. The IPsec function is capable of supporting both IPv4 and IPv6.
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FastWrite, Open Systems Tape Pipelining, and Advanced Accelerator for FICON mitigate the latency effect of a long-
distance FCIP distance connection over IP WAN.
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Extension HCL (Hot Code Load) provides in-service firmware upgrade for supporting 24/7 non-stop business
operations
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Built-in WAN link tester generates traffic over an IP connection to test for maximum throughput, congestion, loss
percentage, out-of-order delivery, latency, and other network conditions. It helps to determine the health of a WAN link
before deploying it for use.
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Fabric Vision advanced monitoring provides the following functions:
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Policy-based monitoring monitors extension connectivity and WAN anomalies using multi-layer metrics.
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Flow monitoring reports IOPS and data rate of individual I/O flows of inter-DC replication and tape backup
operations.
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Flow generator generates FC frames for a defined flow with default or custom size and pattern and sent across
extension tunnel to help validate end-to-end network setup and configuration.
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Extended distance Fibre Channel supports long-distance native FC connectivity.
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Extension tunnels and circuits:
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A maximum of 8 circuits can be configured per tunnel.
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A maximum of 20 tunnels (VE_Ports) can be configured for all GbE ports.
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The maximum committed rate of a single circuit is 10G, whether configured on a 10GbE or 40GbE port.
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FCIP and hybrid mode (FC + IP) modes.
SX6 Blade Port Numbering and Trunking
The following figure shows how ports are numbered on the blade. Ports are labeled as 10GE, 40GbE, and FC on the
blade.
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Summary of Contents for Brocade X6-4
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