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Principal switch best practices

navaneedhan — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:49:16 +0000

Following best practices will ensure a good production SAN:

> Always use the core switch or a director as a principal switch.

> Configure NTP server of your organisation. It is always good to use the same NTP server of servers.

> Work all the upstream and downstream in a paper and determine any bottlenecks in ISL. Production servers shouldnt face any bottleneck in performance.

> Lowest WWN is the default principal switch. You can also force to a new election or force a switch to be a principal switch by setting the priority bit.

> Allow zoning to be done only on principal switch using Fabric configuration server.

Please check your SAN design, Data center requirements and Organisation wide policy to determine the correct configuration.

Principal switch in Brocade SAN

navaneedhan — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:32:53 +0000

Principal switches maintain unique domain ID across the fabric. Principal switch ensures that each switch in a SAN have different domain ID. Any ISL of a switch that takes to the Principal switch is a upstream. Any ISL of a switch that goes away from principla switch is a downstream. All non principal switches are called subordinate switch. Zoning updated in a principal switch or a non principal switch will update zoning across the fabric. “date” command will be a read-only if a switch is configured with a Time server – NTP. Principal switch will update the time in all the non principal switches. tsclockserver is the command used to associate a switch to a NTP time server.

To manually set a subordinate switch to a principal switch use “fabricprincipal” command.

To elect a new principal switch:

>fabricprincipal -1 # This command will see the appropriate principal switch and make it as a new principal switch. Also, this will elect new upstream and downstream ISLs

To force a switch to be a principal switch:

>fabricprincipal -f # This command will force the switch to be the principal switch of the fabric. This will also elect new upstream and downstream ISLs

To see the current settings:

> fabricprincipal -q # This command will query the current settiings and displays

Searching ns entries or name server for WWN, FCID or alias name

navaneedhan — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:32:37 +0000

When you want to search a wwn or fcid or alias name of entire fabric:

> nsallshow | grep “wwn / fcid / aliasname”

When you want search in all switches except the switch from where you enter the command:

> nscamshow | grep ” wwn / fcid / aliasname”

When you want to search in local switch alone:

> nsshow | grep ” wwn / fcid / aliasname”

Searching WWN in Brocade switches

navaneedhan — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:29:11 +0000

You can search a WWN in a Brocade switch using:
>switchshow | grep “WWN”

Also, you can use a nodefind command to search across name server entries:

>nodefind “WWN/FCID/aliasname”

Zone Alias in Brocade switches

navaneedhan — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:23:00 +0000

Alias: -

Alias are user given names for WWNs in a Brocade switch. See below example for alias creation:

alicreate “(AliasName)” “(AliasMember1); (AliasMember2)”

An alias will contain one or more alias members. Alias members are possible zone members. At the time of creating an alias, there can be no alias members. To add alias members later, see below example:

aliAdd “(AliasName)” “(AliasMember1); (AliasMember2)”

To remove alias member: -

aliRemove “(AliasName)” “(AliasMember)”

To delete an Alias: -

aliDelete “(AliasName)” – This will delete alias only not the alias members. Zoneobjectexpunge will help to remove an object from all zones and delete the member.

Zoning Best Practices

navaneedhan — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:14:00 +0000

Zone best Practices: -

* Always ensure that only one initiator is present in a zone – Initiators are host HBAs
* Always use alias names for zone members – Incase of HBA failure, you are required to update the alias alone, else you will update all the zones that carries the HBA WWN.
* Always use relative zone names & Configuration names. Examples: exchclust-01 – for exchange cluster zone 1. bkpdrv-01 – for backup drive FC zone 1
* Always do use FC ping command to ensure the connectivity
* Break the configurations as small as possible with more zones. Do ensure your switch supports more zones. More zones will help in easy management

Configuration set members

navaneedhan — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:13:00 +0000

Possible configuration set members are Zones

Brocade SAN Configuration

navaneedhan — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:12:00 +0000

To create a Configuration zone set:

cfgCreate “(CfgName)” “(CfgMember-ZoneName); (CfgMember-ZoneName)”

To add a zone to a configuration zone set:

cfgAdd “(CfgName)” “(CfgMember-ZoneName); (CfgMember-ZoneName)”

To enable configuration zone set:

cfgEnable “(CfgName)”

To disable Configuration: -

cfgDisable “(CfgName)”

Saving a configuration:

cfgSave

Zone Members

navaneedhan — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:11:00 +0000

Possible Zone members are: -

Possible Zone members: -
) WWN
) Port name
) Alias – Refer “Zone Alias”

Select the appropriate method of zoning to your SAN application.

Soft zone and hard zone always depend upon the design of the Data Center.

Zoning Tasks: -

navaneedhan — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:53:00 +0000

Zoning is very important in SAN security. Please do look at the below points of Zoning tasks:

) Identify the devices that needs to communicate.

) Create Alias for the devices – Refer “Zone Alias”

) Create a Zone with a relative zone name – Refer “Zone Best Practices”

) Add the identified devices to the zone

) If the configuration zone set is available then add the zone and activate it, Else create a configuration zone set.

) Use FC ping commands to check the communication between zone members and confirm the zone completion successful

Simple zoning configurations: -

To create a Zone:

zoneCreate “(Zone)” “(ZoneMember); (ZoneMember) “

Possible Zone members: -

) WWN

) Port name

) Alias – Refer “Zone Alias”

After creating a zone, we may need to add a member [a host or storage]. To do this:

zoneAdd “(Zone)” “(ZoneMember); (ZoneMember) “

To know the possible Zone Members Refer “Zone Members”