Brocade Communications Systems StoreFabric SN6500B Service manual

53-1002752-01
14 December 2012
®
752
Fabric Watch
Administrator’s Guide
Supporting Fabric OS v7.1.0

Copyright © 2000, 2002-2012 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Brocade, the B-wing symbol, BigIron, DCX, Fabric OS, FastIron, NetIron, SAN Health, ServerIron, and TurboIron are registered
trademarks, and AnyIO, Brocade Assurance, Brocade NET Health, Brocade One, CloudPlex, MLX, VCS, VDX, and When the Mission
Is Critical, the Network Is Brocade are trademarks of Brocade Communications Systems, Inc., in the United States and/or in other
countries. Other brands, products, or service names mentioned are or may be trademarks or service marks of their respective
owners.
Notice: This document is for informational purposes only and does not set forth any warranty, expressed or implied, concerning
any equipment, equipment feature, or service offered or to be offered by Brocade. Brocade reserves the right to make changes to
this document at any time, without notice, and assumes no responsibility for its use. This informational document describes
features that may not be currently available. Contact a Brocade sales office for information on feature and product availability.
Export of technical data contained in this document may require an export license from the United States government.
The authors and Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. shall have no liability or responsibility to any person or entity with
respect to any loss, cost, liability, or damages arising from the information contained in this book or the computer programs that
accompany it.
The product described by this document may contain “open source” software covered by the GNU General Public License or other
open source license agreements. To find out which open source software is included in Brocade products, view the licensing
terms applicable to the open source software, and obtain a copy of the programming source code, please visit
http://www.brocade.com/support/oscd.
Brocade Communications Systems, Incorporated
Corporate and Latin American Headquarters
Brocade Communications Systems, Inc.
130 Holger Way
San Jose, CA 95134
Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
E-mail: inf[email protected]
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Brocade Communications Systems China HK, Ltd.
No. 1 Guanghua Road
Chao Yang District
Units 2718 and 2818
Beijing 100020, China
Tel: [phone]
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E-mail: [email protected]
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29, Route de l'Aéroport
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E-mail: [email protected]

Fabric Watch Administrator’s Guide iii
53-1002752-01
Document History
Title Publication Number Summary of Changes Date
Fabric Watch User’s Guide 53-0001559-02 New document May 2000
Fabric Watch User’s Guide 53-0000186-02 n/a March 2002
Fabric Watch User’s Guide 53-0000504-02 n/a April 2003
Fabric Watch User’s Guide 53-0000524-02 n/a April 2003
Fabric Watch User’s Guide 53-0000524-03 Updated default values and restructured
the document.
December 2003
Fabric Watch User’s Guide 53-0000524-04 Rewrote the document completely and
added new features.
Reorganized procedures into steps,
rewrote many sections to improve clarity.
Added technical and editorial changes.
April 2004
Fabric Watch User’s Guide 53-0000524-05 Updates to support Fabric OS v4.4.0
features and Brocade 3016 and 4100
switches.
Rewrote Chapter 4, “Configuring Fabric
Watch.”
September 2004
Fabric Watch Administrator’s Guide 53-0000524-06 Renamed book. Combined the
Introduction and Concepts chapters into
a single chapter. Added support for
Brocade 200E, Brocade 3014, and
Brocade 48000.
March 2005
Fabric Watch Administrator’s Guide 53-1000047-01 Updates to support Fabric OS v5.1.0
features and Brocade 4900 and 7500
switches.
November 2005
Fabric Watch Administrator’s Guide 53-1000243-01 Updates to support Fabric OS v5.2.0
features and the FC4-16IP and FC4-48
port blades. Removed references to
Brocade 3014 and 3016, as embedded
switches are not supported in Fabric OS
v5.2.0.
September 2006
Fabric Watch Administrator’s Guide 53-1000438-01 Updates to support Fabric OS v5.3.0,
implementation of IPv6.
June 2007
Fabric Watch Administrator’s Guide 53-1000601-01 Updates to support Fabric OS v6.0.0. September 2007
Fabric Watch Administrator’s Guide 53-1000601-02 Updates to support Fabric OS v6.1.0. March 2008
Fabric Watch Administrator’s Guide 53-1000601-03 Reorganized many sections to improve
clarity.
Updates to support Fabric OS v6.2.0:
Virtual Fabric, port movement, fan
monitoring behavior, link reset, and DCX-
4S.
November 2008
Fabric Watch Administrator’s Guide 53-1001342-01 Updates to support Fabric OS v6.3.0:
portThConfig, portFencing, and
sysMonitor commands and Brocade
8000 support.
July 2009

iv Fabric Watch Administrator’s Guide
53-1002752-01
Fabric Watch Administrator’s Guide 53-1001770-01 Updates to support Fabric OS v6.4.0:
portThConfig, sysMonitor, thConfig, and
portFencing commands (recommended
for use in configuring class areas instead
of the fwConfigure command);
recommended class settings added.
March 2010
Fabric Watch Administrator’s Guide 53-1002153-01 Updates to support Fabric OS v7.0.0:
•Removed deprecated commands:
fwconfigure and fwshow.
•Removed RAPI trap support.
•Added information about “in-
between” thresholds.
•Updated portthconfig command
recommendations.
•Changed Port Fencing section.
•Added the thMonitor command,
which supports the SFP class.
•Added information about 16 Gbps
and QSFP SFPs.
•Added packet loss monitoring
enhancements for the VE_Port.
•Removed support for “changed”
action.
•Removed support for “seconds”
time base.
•Added pause / continue feature.
April 2011
Fabric Watch Administrator’s Guide 53-1002153-02 Updated the Copyright section.
Added support for Brocade 6505.
Updates to support Fabric OS v7.0.1:
•Chapter 1—Added universal
temporary license support
information.
•Chapter 7—Added port fencing
thresholds for state change and link
reset areas.
•Chapter 8—Added information
about the switch status on the
power supply for the Brocade DCX
8510-8.
•Chapter 9—Removed information
regarding custom defined
percentage values using Web Tools.
December 2011
Fabric Watch Administrator’s Guide 53-1002752-01 Very minor updates (this is the last
release for Fabric Watch; being replaced
by MAPS in next Fabric OS version)
•Continuous alerting mode has been
removed from Fabric Watch.
•The ITW counter includes a physical
coding sublayer (PCS) violation. ITW
violations can occur due to an ITW
violation, a PCS violation, or both.
December 2012
Title Publication Number Summary of Changes Date

Fabric Watch Administrator’s Guide v
53-1002752-01
Contents
About This Document
In this chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
How this document is organized . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Supported hardware and software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvi
Deprecated hardware platform support. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvi
What’s new in this document. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvi
New information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
Changed information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
Removed information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
Document conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xvii
Text formatting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
Notes, cautions, and warnings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xviii
Key terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xviii
Additional information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Other industry resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Getting technical help. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Document feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xx
Chapter 1 Fabric Watch
In this chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Fabric health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Fabric Watch overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Role-based access control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Fabric Watch licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Reasons to customize Fabric Watch settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Event behavior configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Alert configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Time base configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Threshold and action configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Post-processing of messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Class, area, and element hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

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Switch monitoring components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Fabric events monitoring. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Performance monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Security monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
SFP monitoring. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Port monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
System resource monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Switch policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Logical switch support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Threshold monitoring using SNMP tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
MIB capability configuration parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Fabric Watch event settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Fabric Watch notification types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
E-mail alert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
SNMP traps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
RASlog (switch event) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Locked port log. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Fabric Watch audit messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Data values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Fabric Watch support in Access Gateway mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Chapter 2 Fabric Watch Thresholds
In this chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Threshold values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
In-between buffer values. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Threshold triggers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Above event trigger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Below event trigger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Audit and RASlog messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Time bases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Time base set to none . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Time base set to other than none. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Fabric Watch alarm behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Chapter 3 Fabric Watch Threshold Components
In this chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Fabric Watch classes, areas, and elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Class areas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Chapter 4 Fabric Watch Activation
In this chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

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Interfaces for activating Fabric Watch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Activating Fabric Watch using a Telnet session . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Activating Fabric Watch using SNMP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Activating Fabric Watch using Web Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28
Chapter 5 Fabric Watch Configuration
In this chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Fabric Watch configuration tasks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Setting Fabric Watch custom and default values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
E-mail notification configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Showing e-mail configuration information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Disabling an e-mail alert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Enabling an e-mail alert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Sending a test e-mail message. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Setting recipient e-mail address for e-mail alert . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Setting the relay host IP address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Displaying the relay host configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34
Removing the relay host configuration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Notification configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Configuring alarm notifications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Chapter 6 Fabric, Security, SFP, and Performance Monitoring
In this chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Fabric monitoring guidelines and default settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Fabric class areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Fabric monitoring setting guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Fabric class default settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Security monitoring guidelines and default settings . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Security class areas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Security monitoring default settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
SFP monitoring guidelines and default settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43
SFP class areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
SFP monitoring default settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Performance monitoring guidelines and default settings . . . . . . . .45
Performance Monitor class areas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Performance monitoring setting guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Performance Monitor class default settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
thConfig command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
thConfig command examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
16 Gbps and QSFP monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Recommended settings for Fabric, SFP, Performance,
Security classes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Chapter 7 Port Monitoring
In this chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

viii Fabric Watch Administrator’s Guide
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Port class areas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Port class guidelines and default settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Physical port setting guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Port class default settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Port configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Custom port settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Using the nosave command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
portThConfig command procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Port type: physical port . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
E_Port subclass setting guidelines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
E_Port class default settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
FOP_Port and FCU_Port subclass setting guidelines . . . . . . . .64
FOP_Port and FCU_Port subclass default settings . . . . . . . . . . 65
VE_Port class default settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .68
Port type: E_Port, FOP_Port, or FCU_Port . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Setting the port persistence time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Port fencing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Port fencing configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Port fencing configuration using BNA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Recommended port configuration settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Chapter 8 System Monitoring
In this chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Environment monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Environment class area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Environment monitoring setting guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Environment class default settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Resource class settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Resource class area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Resource class setting guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Resource class default settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
System monitoring using the sysMonitor command. . . . . . . . . . . . .78
Using the nosave command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Examples of the sysMonitor command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Environment class settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Resource class settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
CPU and memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Examples of the CPU and memory commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Recommended environment and resource monitoring settings . . . 81
Switch monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Switch status policy planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
FRU monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
FRU class areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Configuring FRUs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Specifying triggers for FRU alarms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Recommended FRU settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

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Chapter 9 Fabric Watch Configuration Using Web Tools
In this chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Fabric Watch Configuration Using Web Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Opening the Fabric Watch window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
System Monitoring using Web Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Fabric Watch threshold configuration using Web Tools . . . . . .89
Configuring alarms for FRUs using Web Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . .92
Configuring alarm filters using Web Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Fabric Watch alarm information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
E-mail notification using Web Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .94
Chapter 10 Fabric Watch Reports
In this chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Fabric Watch reports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Switch Availability Monitor report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Generating a Switch Availability Monitor report. . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Switch Health report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Generating a Switch Health report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99
Switch Status Policy report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100
Generating a Switch Status Policy report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100
Port Detail report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101
Generating a Port Detail report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101
Index

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Tables
Table 1 Fabric Watch classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Table 2 Fabric Watch configuration tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Table 3 Fabric class areas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Table 4 Fabric class default settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Table 5 Security class areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Table 6 Security class area default settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Table 7 SFP class areas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Table 8 SFP class default settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Table 9 Performance Monitor class areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Table 10 Performance Monitor class default settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Table 11 End-to-End Performance Monitor class default settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Table 12 Configuration options for thConfig command. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Table 13 16 Gbps and QSFP configurable SFP types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Table 14 Recommended settings for Fabric, SFP, Performance, and Security classes . . 52
Table 15 Port class areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Table 16 Port class default settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Table 17 E_Port class default settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Table 18 FOP_Port and FCU_Port class default settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Table 19 VE_Port class default settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Table 20 Port fencing class and subclass areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Table 21 Recommended port fencing thresholds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Table 22 Recommended configuration for the Port class. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Table 23 Environment class area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Table 24 Environment class default settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Table 25 Resource class area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Table 26 Resource class default settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Table 27 Recommended Environment and Resource class settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Table 28 Switch status policy factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Table 29 FRU class areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Table 30 Recommended FRU settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Table 31 Alarm notification table fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Table 32 Fabric OS commands to view Fabric Watch reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Table 33 Port Detail report columns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

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Figures
Figure 1 In-between buffer values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Figure 2 Above event trigger with buffer zone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Figure 3 Time base set to none . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Figure 4 Event trigger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Figure 5 Configuring Fabric Watch using SNMP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Figure 6 Example OID tree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Figure 7 Fabric Watch dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

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About This Document
In this chapter
•How this document is organized . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
•Supported hardware and software. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvi
•What’s new in this document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvi
•Document conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
•Additional information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
•Getting technical help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
•Document feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xx
How this document is organized
This document is organized to help you find the information that you want as quickly and easily as
possible.
This document contains the following components:
•Chapter 1, “Fabric Watch,” provides an introduction to Fabric Watch and the benefits of its use.
It also defines concepts that are useful in Fabric Watch configuration.
•Chapter 2, “Fabric Watch Thresholds,” explains the concept of high and low thresholds and
buffer values and provides examples of various threshold settings.
•Chapter 3, “Fabric Watch Threshold Components,” describes the components (class, area, and
element) associated with every monitored behavior.
•Chapter 4, “Fabric Watch Activation,” describes the Fabric Watch requirements, provides an
overview of the interfaces, and explains the methods of accessing Fabric Watch through each
interface.
•Chapter 5, “Fabric Watch Configuration,” provides a comprehensive table that lists the
commands you can use to create custom threshold configurations. This chapter discusses
configuration files, setting the port persistence time, custom and default values, and e-mail
notifications.
•Chapter 6, “Fabric, Security, SFP, and Performance Monitoring,” describes how to configure
high and low thresholds for Fabric Watch event monitoring for SFP, Fabric, Performance, and
Security classes using the thConfig command.
•Chapter 7, “Port Monitoring,” describes how to configure high and low thresholds, buffers,
triggers, and actions on specified ports using the portThConfig command.

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What’s new in this document
•Chapter 8, “System Monitoring,” describes how to configure system memory and CPU values
using the sysMonitor command. This chapter also lists the switch status policy factors that
affect the health of the switch, describes how to set and view switch status policies, and
details how to configure FRUs.
•Chapter 9, “Fabric Watch Configuration Using Web Tools,”provides information about how to
use Web Tools to configure Fabric Watch settings, an alternative to using the command line
interface.
•Chapter 10, “Fabric Watch Reports,” describes the reports available through Fabric Watch and
the methods of accessing each report.
Supported hardware and software
Although many different software and hardware configurations are tested and supported by
Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. for Fabric OS 7.1.0, documenting all possible
configurations and scenarios is beyond the scope of this document.
Deprecated hardware platform support
The following hardware platforms are not supported in the Fabric OS 7.1.0 release. These platforms
can interoperate with switches running Fabric OS 7.0.0, but cannot load Fabric OS 7.1.0.
•Brocade 4100
•Brocade 4900
•Brocade 5000
•Brocade 7500/7500E
•Brocade 7600
•Brocade 48000
The following blades are not supported in any chassis operating with Fabric OS 7.1.0:
•FA4-18
•FC4-16IP
•FC4-16
•FC4-32
•FC4-48
What’s new in this document
This document contains information that was available at the time the product was released. Any
information that becomes available after the release of this document is captured in the release
notes.

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What’s new in this document
New information
•Added information about the four threshold types: above high threshold, below high threshold,
above low threshold, and below low threshold.
•Added information about the thMonitor command, which supports the SFP class.
•Added information about 10 Gbps, 16 Gbps and QSFP SFP support, including the new sfpType
operand.
•Added information about how the fwMailCfg command now supports multiple e-mail
recipients.
•Pause and continue monitoring functionality continued with the thConfig, portThConfig, and
sysMonitor command.
•Added information about the ITW counter, which includes a physical coding sublayer (PCS)
violation. ITW violations can occur due to an ITW violation, a PCS violation, or both.
Changed information
•Updated port fencing section and included moderate, aggressive, and conservative threshold
settings.
•Recommended settings for Port areas using the portThConfig command.
•Buffer settings which now enable the user to configure “in-between” buffer values for
thresholds that fall between the below high threshold and the above low threshold boundaries.
•Packet loss monitoring enhancements on the VE_Port.
Removed information
•All references to deprecated fwconfigure and fwshow commands
•Seconds timebase
•“In-between” and “Changed” default alarm setting options
•Continuous alerting mode has been removed from Fabric Watch
Document conventions
This section describes text formatting conventions and important notices formats.
Text formatting
The narrative-text formatting conventions that are used in this document are as follows:
bold text Identifies command names
Identifies the names of user-manipulated GUI elements
Identifies keywords and operands
Identifies text to enter at the GUI or CLI

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What’s new in this document
italic text Provides emphasis
Identifies variables
Identifies paths and Internet addresses
Identifies document titles
code text Identifies CLI output
Identifies syntax examples
For readability, command names in the narrative portions of this guide are presented in mixed
lettercase: for example, switchShow. In actual examples, command lettercase is often all
lowercase. Otherwise, this manual specifically notes those cases in which a command is case
sensitive.
Notes, cautions, and warnings
The following notices and statements are used in this manual. They are listed below in order of
increasing severity of potential hazards.
NOTE
A note provides a tip, guidance, or advice, emphasizes important information, or provides a
reference to related information.
ATTENTION
An Attention statement indicates potential damage to hardware or data.
CAUTION
A Caution statement alerts you to situations that can be potentially hazardous to you or cause
damage to hardware, firmware, software, or data.
DANGER
A Danger statement indicates conditions or situations that can be potentially lethal or extremely
hazardous to you. Safety labels are also attached directly to products to warn of these conditions
or situations.
Key terms
For definitions specific to Brocade and Fibre Channel, see the Brocade Glossary.
For definitions of SAN-specific terms, visit the Storage Networking Industry Association online
dictionary at http://www.snia.org/education/dictionary.

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What’s new in this document
Additional information
This section lists additional Brocade and industry-specific documentation that you might find
helpful.
To get up-to-the-minute information, go to http://my.brocade.com to register at no cost for a user ID
and password.
White papers, online demonstrations, and data sheets are available through the Brocade website
at:
http://www.brocade.com/products-solutions/products/index.page
For additional Brocade documentation, visit the Brocade website:
http://www.brocade.com
Release notes are available on the MyBrocade website and are also bundled with the Fabric OS
firmware.
Other industry resources
For additional resource information, visit the Technical Committee T11 website. This website
provides interface standards for high-performance and mass storage applications for Fibre
Channel, storage management, and other applications:
http://www.t11.org
For information about the Fibre Channel industry, visit the Fibre Channel Industry Association
website:
http://www.fibrechannel.org
Getting technical help
Contact your switch support supplier for hardware, firmware, and software support, including
product repairs and part ordering. To expedite your call, have the following information available:
1. General Information
•Switch model
•Switch operating system version
•Error numbers and messages received
•supportSave command output
•Detailed description of the problem, including the switch or fabric behavior immediately
following the problem, and specific questions
•Description of any troubleshooting steps already performed and the results
•Serial console and Telnet session logs
•Syslog message logs

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What’s new in this document
2. Switch Serial Number
The switch serial number and corresponding bar code are provided on the serial number label.
For specific serial number locations, refer to the Brocade 6520 Hardware Reference Manual.
3. World Wide Name (WWN)
Use the licenseIdShow command to display the WWN of the chassis.
If you cannot use the licenseIdShow command because the switch is inoperable, you can get
the WWN from the same place as the serial number, except for the Brocade DCX. For the
Brocade DCX, access the numbers on the WWN cards by removing the Brocade logo plate at
the top of the nonport side of the chassis.
Document feedback
Quality is our first concern at Brocade and we have made every effort to ensure the accuracy and
completeness of this document. However, if you find an error or an omission, or you think that a
topic needs further development, we want to hear from you. Forward your feedback to:
[e-mail]
Provide the title and version number of the document and as much detail as possible about your
comment, including the topic heading and page number and your suggestions for improvement.