Fabric OS 6.2 administrator guide 173
6
Managing virtual fabrics
Virtual Fabrics overview
Virtual Fabrics is an architecture used to virtualize hardware boundaries. Traditionally, SAN design and
management is done at the granularity of a physical switch. The Virtual Fabrics feature allows SAN design
and management to be done at the granularity of a port.
Virtual Fabrics is a suite of related features that can be customized based on your needs. The Virtual
Fabrics suite consists of the following specific features:
•
Logical Switch
•
Logical Fabric
•
Device sharing
This chapter describes the Logical Switch and Logical Fabric features. For information about device sharing
with Virtual Fabrics, see ”
FC-FC routing and Virtual Fabrics
” on page 401.
The following platforms are Virtual Fabrics-capable:
•
HP StorageWorks DC SAN Backbone Director and HP StorageWorks DC04 SAN Director
•
HP StorageWorks 8/80 SAN Switch
•
HP StorageWorks 8/40 SAN Switch
For additional information about supported switches and port types, see ”
Supported platforms for Virtual
Fabrics
” on page 181.
Virtual Fabrics and Admin Domains are mutually exclusive and are not supported at the same time on a
switch.
Logical Switch
Traditionally, each switch and all the ports in the switch act as a single Fibre Channel switch (FC switch)
that participates in a single fabric. The Logical Switch feature allows you to divide a physical chassis into
multiple fabric elements. Each of these fabric elements is referred to as a
Logical Switch
. Each Logical
Switch functions as an independent self-contained FC switch.
Default Logical Switch
To use the Virtual Fabrics features, you must first enable Virtual Fabrics on the switch. The switch must be
Virtual Fabrics-capable (HP StorageWorks DC SAN Backbone Director, HP StorageWorks DC04 SAN
Director, HP StorageWorks 8/80 SAN Switch, or HP StorageWorks 8/40 SAN Switch). Enabling Virtual
Fabrics creates a single Logical Switch in the physical chassis. This Logical Switch is called the
default
Logical Switch
, and it initially contains all of the ports in the physical chassis.
Figure 8
shows a switch
before and after enabling Virtual Fabrics. In this example, the switch has 10 ports, labeled P0 through P9.
Summary of Contents for A7533A - Brocade 4Gb SAN Switch Base
Page 1: ...HP StorageWorks Fabric OS 6 2 administrator guide Part number 5697 0016 Edition May 2009 ...
Page 24: ...24 ...
Page 99: ...Fabric OS 6 2 administrator guide 99 ...
Page 100: ...100 Managing user accounts ...
Page 118: ...116 Configuring standard security features ...
Page 164: ...162 Configuring advanced security features ...
Page 234: ...232 Installing and maintaining firmware ...
Page 268: ...266 Administering advanced zoning ...
Page 284: ...282 Configuring Enterprise class platforms ...
Page 292: ...290 Routing traffic ...
Page 294: ...292 Interoperability for merged SANs ...
Page 302: ...300 Configuring the Distributed Management Server ...
Page 334: ...332 iSCSI gateway service ...
Page 340: ...338 Administering NPIV ...
Page 407: ...Fabric OS 6 2 administrator guide 405 ...
Page 408: ...406 Using the FC FC routing service ...
Page 438: ...434 Administering extended fabrics ...
Page 460: ...456 Administering ISL trunking ...
Page 516: ...512 FICON fabrics ...
Page 526: ...522 Configuring and monitoring FICON Extension Services ...
Page 540: ...536 Configuring the PID format ...
Page 544: ...540 Understanding legacy password behavior ...
Page 546: ...542 Mixed fabric configurations for non merge SANs ...
Page 550: ...546 Migrating from an MP Router to a 400 MP Router ...
Page 558: ...554 Inband Management ...
Page 572: ...568 ...