Brocade and Qlogic (SANbox2) switches in one fabric
Below is a quick guide about how to merge Brocade and Qlogic (SANbox2) switches together. I understand, that a more intellegent approach would be to stay away from mixing different vendors in a SAN environment but at times we live with what we’ve been given. As always in our life, there is a trade-off one will have to pay: since in the latest Brocade firmware (6.x) the interoperability mode 1 has been depricated thus you won’t be able to plug a new Brocade switch into a fabric built on Qlogic hardware. Another, and a more serious, issue is that with 6.x I was unable to propogate zone changes from Brocade in native mode to Qlogic switch which was set to interopmode 1. The only way to do that was to swipe out zone’s configuration completely from the Qlogic switch and recreate an ISL. If this a show-stopper then refrain from upgrading your Borcade switch and stay with 5.x firmware version.
Our initial state looked like this (port 3 was plugged to Qlogic):
swd77:admin> switchshow
switchName: swd77
switchType: 34.0
switchState: Online
switchMode: Interop
switchRole: Principal
switchDomain: 97 (unconfirmed)
switchId: fffc61
switchWwn: 10:00:00:05:1e:02:a1:3c
zoning: OFF
switchBeacon: OFF
Area Port Media Speed State Proto
=======================================================================
0 0 id N2 Online F-Port 50:05:08:b3:00:92:59:91
1 1 id N4 No_Light
2 2 id N2 Online F-Port 50:06:0b:00:00:38:fd:42
3 3 id N2 In_Sync
4 4 id N2 Online F-Port 50:05:08:b3:00:92:59:99
5 5 id N4 No_Light
6 6 id N2 Online F-Port 50:06:0b:00:00:38:fb:a2
7 7 id N4 No_Light
8 8 -- N4 No_Module
9 9 -- N4 No_Module
10 10 -- N4 No_Module
11 11 -- N4 No_Module
12 12 -- N4 No_Module
13 13 -- N4 No_Module
14 14 -- N4 No_Module
15 15 -- N4 No_Module
swd77:admin> islshow
No ISL found
swd77:admin> cfgshow
Defined configuration:
cfg: default all_wwns
zone: all_wwns
50:05:08:b3:00:92:59:91; 50:06:0b:00:00:38:fd:42;
50:05:08:b3:00:92:59:99; 50:06:0b:00:00:38:fb:a2
Effective configuration:
no configuration in effect
swd77:admin> portcfgshow 3
Area Number: 3
Speed Level: AUTO
Trunk Port ON
Long Distance OFF
VC Link Init OFF
Locked L_Port OFF
Locked G_Port OFF
Disabled E_Port OFF
ISL R_RDY Mode OFF
RSCN Suppressed OFF
Persistent Disable OFF
NPIV capability ON
The switches were connected through ports 3 and 0 on the Borcade’s and Qlogic’s sides repsectively and as you’ve already noticed port 3 was in sate “In_Sync”, which is a synonymous for “Bad”. The only way to recover from this state was a manual intervention and forcebly configuring port 3 as a G_Port.
swd77:admin> portcfggport 3,1
Only after doing that, an active ISL link was brought on-line:
swd77:admin> islshow 1: 3-> 0 10:00:00:c0:dd:02:cb:fa 98 sp: 2.000G bw: 2.000G swd77:admin> fabricshow Switch ID Worldwide Name Enet IP Addr FC IP Addr Name ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 97: fffc61 10:00:00:05:1e:02:a1:3c 10.3.241.225 0.0.0.0 >"swd77" 98: fffc62 10:00:00:c0:dd:02:cb:fa 10.3.241.226 0.0.0.0 "SANbox2-8"
So manually configuring port 3 on my brocade switch as a G_Port was the main trick that actually made everything spinning. Keep that in mind and have fun!