ASIC port groups on 96-port 6520 (IBM F96).

[Doug Schroeder]

Does the 96 port switch have 16 port ASIC groups?  I do not see it specified anywhere.  This is for consideration of ISL Trunk ports.  

I could assume it has 6 ASICs and they are 0-15, 16-31, 32-47 and so on similar to the 80-port switches.

Can anybody verify?  

#asicportgroup
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[Marian Bezeg]

Hello,

 

for 96 number of ports the type should be BROCADE 6520.

There should be 6 Condor3 ASICs.

 

Condor 3 ASICs:

48 Ports ( 6x8- port groups)

 

 

 

For your question regarding port groups for trunking you could use command bellow:

 

 

porttrunkarea --show all

 

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[Doug Schroeder]

Ok we have two different outcomes.   If there are truly 6 ASICs then the answer is yes the groups are in 16 tot he ports are as I suggested 0-15,16-31 etc.   But the command output deals with trunk area which shows in groups of 8.   Does this suggest that for the sake of termining ISL TRUNKING groups are 16 or 8 in size?   I believe that it is "per ASIC".

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[Marian Bezeg]

Hello,

Groups is still per 8 ports..0-7,8-15, etc...
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[Doug Schroeder]

Sorry - question is not about groups.   Question is "how many ports per ASIC" on teh 6520 96-port switch.

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[Antonio Bongiorno]

the 6520 have in total 6 Condor 3 ASIC

 

each ASIC serve 16 Port

 

1* ASIC 16 Port

2* ASIC 32 Port

3* and so on....

4*

5*

6* ASIC 96 Port

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[Marian Bezeg]

@Antonio Bongiorno Is there any command where you can check backend ports betwen ASICs and front end port mapping as on directors like DCX with command bladeportmap command?

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[Thomas.Letsche]

Hi,

 

the bladeportmap does also work on multi ASIC switches.

 

TL

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[mgoetze]

The 6520 actually has 4 frontend ASICs serving 24 ports each and 2 backend ASICs. You can verify this with the command "portbuffershow". However, as stated above, trunks can only form within groups of 8 ports.

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[Samuel Woldekiros]

If 4 frontend ASICs serve 24 ports each that is 96 ports right there.  What about the 2 backend ASICs? what are they serving? No port left in 6520.

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SAN Engineer
HCL America
Orlando Florida
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[Samuel Woldekiros]

What exactly the backend ASICs serve?   Are the backend ASICs backup ASICs for fault tolerance?
From bladeportmap which runs only as root, there is no distinct marker of which backend ASIC owns which port.
Can you explain a bit in depth?
Thanks

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[Samuel Woldekiros]

what is the frontend ASIC and backend ASIC, and their purpose?

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SAN Engineer
HCL America
Orlando Florida
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[kishore ram]

The backend and front end ASICs are all interconnected. Its just that the front ASICS are mapped to external ports and backend ASICs are not mapped to front / external ports.

Traffic hits to external ports which routes to frontend ASIC first and then it traverses to backend ASICS and therby it will forward to another frontend ASIC based on the destination (external) port connected.