iscsi 5428 with Brocade 2800

[tmesbah]

We are getting these error message when connecting iscsi 5428 to brocade switch 2800:

Sep 04 11:39:54: %FC-5-EportConvergeAlarm: EportConvergeAlarm;61;0;0;1;[Thu Sep

04 11:40:20.948 2003][A4100][Eport:0x7c604003.373.4 Port: 0/1][ELP indicates invalid Flow Control, attempting to connect to switch in non-interoperability mode?

[mrfrase]

The Brocade switch is required to be placed in Interop mode for it to be FC-SW-2 compliant. There are also other guide lines required bt Brocade to work with other non Brocade switches. I will email you a Whitepaper on the required setup on the brocades.

[mrfrase]

tmesbah, please email me, mfrase@cisco.com with the request for the SN5428 interop White Paper, and I will foward it to you. I did not believe it is posted on cisco.com anywhere.

[tmesbah]

Thanks for your Help.

We have now an another problem:

After getting this compatibility issue fixed we found out that:

1)We can not now use Port Zoning (need to use WWNs)

2)Need to change the domain ID (big impact for Unix server connected to the Brocade Switch).

We need to have the Port Zoning, how can we make this working?

THanks

[mrfrase]

I agree, the changing of the DID is an issue, but this is the way Brocade decided to make there switch connect, it is outside the standards. I know of no workarounds. The MDS9100 switches have a "brocade mode" where we can dumb down the MDS9100 to make it work with a Brocade outside SW2 standard. This was to address this DID address change in a production network.

As for the Zoning issue, again per port zoning is outside standards, this is why we are using WWN method. I will see if there are any tricks that people have used to make this work.

[tmesbah]

Many Thanks. I apprecaite your help because we are really stack now "we need to have port zoning because all our SAN infrastructure is configured using Port Zoning".

Is it possible to disable the switch Fabric on Cisco 5428 (will look like 5420) then we can probably have this issue resolved.

Many Thanks Again !!!!!!!!!!!!

[mrfrase]

Well it don't look good. In interop mode connected to a Brocade the SN5428 is forced to use standards method pWWN zoning, Port zoning is not supported and I don't believe a Brocade Port Zoning method can be done on any other FS switch besides another Brocade. The FC switch functionality in the SN5428 can not be turned off. Possibly the Local Cisco Sales team can get a SN5420 on loan until a better plan can be worked out.

[tmesbah]

Many Thanks for your help !!!!!!

[tmesbah]

Hi,

Is Port zoning supported when connect Cisco MDS9216 with Brocade 2400/2600/3800. or we will have the same issue that we have with SN5428.

Thanks

[mrfrase]

Port Zoning is supported on the MDS

[tmesbah]

Many thanks for your help. Very appreciate.