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Cisco MDS 9000 Fabric Manager Switch Configuration Guide
OL-7753-01
Chapter 31 Advanced Features and Concepts
Configuring a Fabric Analyzer
Configuring Timers Per-VSAN
You can also issue the
fctimer
command for a specified VSAN to configure different TOV values for
VSANs with special links like FC or IP tunnels. You can configure different E_D_TOV, R_A_TOV, and
D_S_TOV values for individual VSANs. Active VSANs are suspended or activated when their timer
values are changed.
Caution
You cannot perform a nondisruptive downgrade to any earlier version which does not support per-VSAN
FC timers.
Note
This configuration must be propagated to all switches in the fabric--be sure to configure the same value
in all switches in the fabric.
If a switch is downgraded to SAN-OS Release 1.2(x) or 1.1(x) after the timer is configured for a VSAN,
an error message is issued to warn the user about strict incompatibilities. Refer to the Cisco MDS 9000
Family Troubleshooting Guide for further information.
Configuring a Fabric Analyzer
Fibre Channel protocol analyzers capture, decode, and analyze frames and ordered sets on a link. While
existing Fibre Channel analyzers can capture traffic at wire rate speed. They are expensive and support
limited frame decoding. Also, to snoop traffic, the existing analyzers disrupt the traffic on the link while
the analyzer is inserted into the link.
Cisco has brought protocol analysis within a storage network to a new capability level with the Cisco
Fabric Analyzer. You can capture Fibre Channel control traffic from a switch and decode it without
having to disrupt any connectivity, and without having to be local to the point of analysis.
The Cisco Fibre Channel protocol analyzer is based on two popular public-domain software
applications:
•
libpcap—You can obtain more information from
http://www.tcpdump.org
.
•
Ethereal—You can obtain more information from
http://www.ethereal.com
.
Note
The Cisco Fabric Analyzer is useful in capturing and decoding control traffic, not data traffic. It is
suitable for control path captures, and is not intended for high-speed data path captures.
This section explains the following topics:
This section contains the following topics:
•
About the Cisco Fabric Analyzer, page 31-3
•
Configuring the Cisco Fabric Analyzer, page 31-4