Brocade 7840 to Nexus 5548UP interoperability

[ashwin_kuhikar]

Hi,

In the attached diagram,

Brief:
There are 2 Nexus 5548 connected to ASA 5585 (Firewalls are active-passive mode, handled  by client). These are connected to firewall via trunk. Here firewall is acting as a gateway for all the servers connected below Nexus 2232. All Vlans are configured on firewalls for all these servers and nexus 5548 just act as a pass through device. All these are pure L2 traffic flowing from ASA 5585 till Server via Nexus.

Challenge:
We have a Hitachi Storage G800 which is connected to Brocade 7800.This is an FC traffic carried from Hitachi G800 till Brocade 7800. This FC traffic is converted to FCIP and should be passed on to Nexus 5548UP. Issue here is, I don't know whether Nexus 5548UP is compatible with Brocade 7800 which can accept its FCIP traffic and then forward again to ASA 5585.

I am herewith attaching the "show run" command of one of the Nexus 5548UP along with this.

1. Can anyone please help to check the interoperability of Nexus 5548 and Brocade.
2. Also if possible please suggest best practice to implement this solution.

Regard

[jihicks]

Hi Ashwin,

I apologize, I don't understand the question.  The Hitachi storage is native Fiber Channel.

If you want hosts to be able to access the storage, then you need the host to do FC, FCoE or ISCSi and if ISCSi you need an switch that can be an ISCSi gateway ( ISCSi to FC ).

I don't know if the Brocade does this or not.

Nexus 5548 does not support FCIP ( as an endpoint like the MDS switches ).  It supports native FC and FCoE.   You can have FCIP traffic flow through the N5K ( since it is ethernet/IP traffic ) but you would need an MDS switch to do FCIP.

Best regards,

Jim

[ashwin_kuhikar]

My mistake I was unable to post the question correctly.

The set up shown in network diagram is of one site. We have a similar set up in different site.

The purpose here is to create a FCIP tunnel between these Brocade 7840 switches situated at Site 1 and Site 2.

To achieve this first we need to create a connectivity at Site1 to enable the communication between 2 sites.

My question is, is Brocade 7840 compatible with Nexus 5548UP ? Can we connect Brocade 7840 to N5K ? May be the traffic coming out from Brocade will be an IP traffic. Are these switch interoperable ?

Rgds/Ashwin

[jihicks]

Hi Ashwin,

Sorry, I did not understand.  This is just ethernet/IP traffic to the Nexus switch

So there should be no inseparability problem.

Jim

[ashwin_kuhikar]

Thanks Jim,

Yes its just ethernet/IP traffic to the Nexus switch from Brocade 7840. But my vendor is saying that both the switch are not interoperable, but I do not see any document saying the same.

Ashwin

[jihicks]

Hi Ashwin,

I know of no problem with connecting a GigE ethernet on a Brocade 7480 with a GigE on a Nexus 5K.  Is it possible that what your vendor is saying is that the Nexus 5000 does not do FCIP?

That would be correct, but I know of no reason that FCIP from the Brocade can not pass through the Nexus 5000.  I think there is a misunderstanding with your vendor.  If not, please ask them for more information.

Best regards,

Jim

[Walter Dey]

Nexus 5k supports native FC, FCoE and Ethernet, but NO FCIP !

There is limited interoperability between Brocade and N5k regarding native FC; this mode is however not recommended.

It seems that your servers are connected with Ethernet / IP via FEX to N5K; how can this servers access storage on a FC connected HDS ?

There are only 2 solutions

1) iSCSI, which requires a end to end IP connectivty to HDS

2) FCoE, which could be converted on the N5k to native FC