Brocade Communications Systems Network Advisor 12.3.0, User Manual

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Brocade Network Advisor SAN User Manual 1177
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Flow Generator
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Flow Generator
Flow Generator is a test traffic generator for pre-testing the SAN infrastructure (including internal
connections) for robustness before deploying it. Flow Generator provides you with the ability to:
•
Configure a 16 Gbps FC-capable port as a simulated device that can transmit frames at full 16
Gbps line rate.
•
Emulate a 16 Gbps SAN without actually having any 16 Gbps hosts or targets or SAN-testers.
•
Pre-test the entire SAN fabric at the full line rate, including optics and cables on ISLs as well as
internal connections within a switch.
Flow Generator achieves this using simulation mode (SIM) ports. SIM-Ports behave like standard
ports, but are used only for testing. By using SIM-Ports, Flow Generator traffic is terminated at the
destination port and does not leave the switch. Refer to
“SIM-Ports” on page 1179" for more
information on SIM-Ports.
Flow Generator can generate standard frames or create custom frames with sizes and patterns you
specify. A sample use case would be to create a traffic flow from a source ID to a destination ID to
validate routing and throughput.
“Creating a flow from a specific source to a specific destination”
on page 1187" provides an example of this flow and the results for this use case.
CAUTION
You should not use Flow Generator in an active production environment, as the Flow Generator
traffic can saturate the links and will impact the production traffic sharing the same links.
Flow Generator setup
Flow Generator generates and receives traffic only from simulated ingress and egress ports
(SIM-Ports) which emulate device entries in the Name Server database, so that they are treated as
real devices and can be used to evaluate various switch and fabric operations such as QoS and
Traffic Isolation. For more information on working with SIM-Ports, refer to “
“SIM-Ports” on
page 1179".
Flow Generator offers several flow control options that you can configure, including the ability to
specify both the frame size and the frame payload pattern. Header parameters and other control
parameters can also be added as part of the definition. The 0XID value for frames is random and
cannot be specified.
Flow Generator flows are defined using a combination of the source device, destination device,
ingress port, and egress port parameters. All of these must be SIM-Ports. The source device is the
origination point of the test traffic. The destination device is the destination of the test traffic; for
Flow Generator flows, it may be remote from the switch. The port that transmits (egress) the
simulation traffic must be a 16 Gbps-capable FC port. The port that receives (ingress) the
simulated traffic can be either an 8 Gbps- or a 16 Gbps-capable FC port.
Figure 509 illustrates this
concept.