How to choose ports between 2 Brocade Switches for forming ISL & Trunking

[anand_gopinath]

Hi Team,

We need to ISL & Trunk a brocade B40 with Brocade DCX.

I have the following queries

1. Is a 2 Link ISL & Trunk ok withrespect to performance ???

2. How to identify which ports to choose from each switch so that they will form a ISL  as well as trunk  ???

3. Do i need to manually set these selected ports to trunk using portcfgtrunkport command  ???

[felipon]

Hi,

In response to your questions:

1.- That depends on the load that will go through the 2-link ISL/Trunk. I would try to keep the overall trunk load below 60%.

2.- To set a 2-ISL trunk, ports need to be part of the same port group (0-7,8-15,etc), and have the same port settings (the FOS admin guide provides a more detailed description of these requirements). When it comes to which ports to choose, I would analyse which ports in the switch will, more heavily, use the ISLs and select ports within the same ASIC to make the trunks.

3.- Nope, usually ports are, by default, enabled to become trunks.

rgds

[anand_gopinath]

Hi Felipon,

Does this mean that i can choose 2 consecutive ports (or 2 ports from the same port group ) in B40 as well as Brocade DCX  and connect FC cables between them to form the trunk ??

[felipon]

Hello,

yes, you choose 2 ports within the same port group in each of the switchs and if all the requirements to become a trunk are met (license, speed, etc.), the two ISLs will merge into a trunk.

Rgds

[anand_gopinath]

Hi Feilipon,

In our B40, we have 4G SFPs and in our DCX 4S, we have 8G SFPs.

In this scenairo, which speed setting should  i put in the ISL ports to form trunks ???

Should i put Auto or 4G ???

[felipon]

Hi Anand,

When it comes to ISLs and trunks, always set the port speed manually.

Rgds,

Felipe

[anand_gopinath]

Hi Felipon,

We need to add Trunking License to the existing B40 switches which are live. Will adding trunking license cause the switch to be rebooted  ???

[felipon]

Nope, adding trunking license is fully online.

[anand_gopinath]

Hi Felipon,

We are using FC8-48 Blades in our DCX 4S  .

Can you please help me with the info on Port group ranges in this blade so that i can try to spread out the 2 ISLs as far as possible  ??/

I am not able to get any info on this  .

[felipon]

Hi,

The port groups would be:

0-7

8-15

16-23

24-31

32-39

40-47

rgds