Brocade Communications Systems X6-4, Hardware Installation Manual, Page: 133 / 249

• Bicolor green/amber 40 GbE and 10 or 1 GbE port status LEDs
• Bicolor green/amber FC port status LEDs
For details on interpreting LED operation, refer to Interpreting extension blade LEDs on page 105.
All features are supported on this blade with no license requirements.
Extension features
The SX6 Extension blade supports the following extension features.
NOTE
For full details on extension blade features and configuration, refer to the Brocade Fabric OS Extension Configuration
Guide .
• Connectivity with another Brocade SX6 extension blade or the Brocade 7840 Extension Switch.
• Multiple logical extension tunnels with maximum tunnel bandwidth up to 40 Gbps (FCIP mode) allow for scalable connections
between sites.
• Extension trunking feature allows multiple IP source and destination address pairs (defined as circuits) via multiple 10 GbE or
40 GbE interfaces to provide 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.
• ARL feature meets minimum bandwidth guarantee for each tunnel while making the full utilization of the available network
bandwidth without adverse throughput performance impact at high traffic load.
• 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.
• Key protocol features are enabled in the FCIP implementation to optimize performance of extension over IP networks, including
WAN Optimized TCP (WO-TCP), 9K jumbo frame and end-to-end Path MTU auto discovery.
• Hardware-based IPsec supports 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.
• FastWrite, Open Systems Tape Pipelining and Advanced Accelerator for FICON mitigate the latency effect of a long distance
FCIP distance connection over IP WAN.
• Extension HCL (Hot Code Load) provides In-service firmware upgrade for supporting 24/7 non-stop business operations
• Built-in WAN link tester generates traffic over an IP connection to test for maximum throughput, congestion, loss percentage,
out of order deliver, latency, and other network conditions. It helps determine the health of a WAN link before deploying it for
use.
• Fabric Vision advanced monitoring provides the following functions:
–
Policy based monitoring monitors extension connectivity and WAN anomalies using multi-layer metrics.
– Flow monitoring reports IOPS and data rate of individual I/O flows of inter-DC replication and tape backup operations.
– 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.
• Extended distance Fibre Channel supports long distance native FC connectivity.
• Extension tunnels and circuits:
–
A maximum of 8 circuits can be configured per tunnel.
– A maximum of 20 tunnels (VE_Ports) can be configured for all GbE ports.
– The maximum committed rate of a single circuit is 10 Gbps, whether configured on a 10 GbE or 40 GbE port.
• FCIP and hybrid mode (FC + IP) modes.
Extension blade overview
Brocade X6-4 Director Hardware Installation Guide
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