Brocade 5300 Switch
 
Brocade 4900 Switch
 
Brocade DCX Backbone
 
Brocade 200E Switch
 
Brocade 12000 Fabric Switch
 
Brocade 6510 Fabric Switch
 
Brocade 300 Switch
 
Brocade 24000 Director
 
Brocade 3900 Switch
 
Brocade SAN Switch Hardware
 
Brocade DCX 8510 Backbone/Director
 

PLA-Support>Sun Systems>DISK>Switch>SN-DK: Brocade Switch
 

In this Document

Goal

Solution

Applies to:

Goal

Provide guidance on how to migrate switch configuration between different model Brocade fibre channel switches.

For situations where a fc switch is being replaced with a newer model and trying to avoid having to re-enter all zoning information manually.

Solution

Procedure 1:
To copy zoning configuration to another switch take advantage of normal fibre channel fabric behavior in that zone configurations are distributed to switches within the same fabric.

Connect the new switch to one of the FC ports of the existing switch to form a Inter Switch Link (ISL), then when the fabrics 'merge' the new switch will have the existing switches zoning information.

This requires that the new switch have an empty zone configuration, fabric licenses on both switches, a free port on the existing switch and that the switch parameters allow the formation of a single fabric.

When the switches merge into a single fabric, the zoning information propagates to all switches.

Alternatively, cut&paste using the zoning commands.

Apart from the command reference manual and the administrators guide, there is online help, 'zonehelp' will list zoning commands.

Firmware verision is not likely to be the primary concern here but ISLs require a Fabric license to work (licenseshow will list what is installed).

Most switches are likely to have a fabric license installed.

Fabric merging is touched on in the Brocade Administrator Guide, Zoning configuration management, "New switch of fabric additions".

The Administrator Guide 'Basic connections' goes through the items most likely to be checked as a bunch of fabric and port parameters need to match (apart from Domain_Id which has to be different as each switch in a fabric has a unique Domain_Id (switch number) ).

If switch has default fabric setting, no security settings and the port settings are also at default then the switches should merge provided they have different domain_id and have the appropriate fabric license.

If the fabric's 'segment' in that they don't merge, then looking at the outputs of 'switchshow' , 'errshow' should list why.  

Once the switches merge into a single fabric (fabricshow command will list the switches within the fabric).

Confirm using cfgshow on the new switch,  to see your newly  acquired zone information.

Run cfgsave on the new switch to ensure its written to non-volatile memory.

When the switches merge, there is likely to be a notification to devices about the fabric change using an RSCN . This should not cause any issues to devices (as there should be no changes that affect them) but it would be prudent to perform the switch addition during a maintenance window.

Procedure 2:

Here's and example of what happens when Procedure 1 was followed on  2 switches of different models, and one switch with no fabric license.

This sample is from a B200 (no fabric license) to be replaced by B300 (with fabric license)

Both switches reported the fabric was segmented

The supportshow from both switches showed this errors:

B300:
Segmentations due to:
                     Loopback:       0
              Incompatibility:       0
                      Overlap:       0
                       Zoning:       0
               E_Port Segment:       0
                    Licensing:       0
              Disabled E_Port:       1 <    13  Tue Sep  2 07:54:26 2014

B200:
Segmentations due to:
                     Loopback:          0
              Incompatibility:          0
                      Overlap:          0
                       Zoning:          0
               E_Port Segment:          0
                    Licensing:          1 <

The work around then is to:

1) Get the configupload file from B200 switch.

2) On the new switch (B300) run cfgclear to make sure any configuration setup is cleared

3) Get the configupload file from B300 switch.

4) Copy and paste all the zoning information from 200 switch config file to the B300 switch config file without changing the syntax.

5) Do the switchdisable on 300 switch and perform configdownload.

6) Once the configupload is completed, reboot the switch and check the configuration.

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