Brocade 6520 Switch
48-, 72-, and 96-Port Fibre Channel Enterprise-Class SAN Switch

Features:

Exceptional Scalability for Demanding Workloads and Data Center Consolidation

The Brocade 6520 features 96 Fibre Channel ports in a 2U form factor, delivering industry-leading port density and space utilization for data center consolidation. Designed for maximum flexibility, this enterprise-class switch offers “pay-as-you-grow” scalability with Ports on Demand (PoD). Organizations can quickly, easily, and cost-effectively scale from 48 to 96 ports in 24-port increments, each supporting 2, 4, 8, 10, or 16 Gbps. In addition, flexible, highspeed 16 Gbps and 8 Gbps optics allow organizations to deploy bandwidth on demand to meet growing data center needs. For maximum flexibility, the switch also features dual-direction airflow options to support the latest hot aisle/cold aisle configurations.

Industry-Leading Performance for Growing Workloads

The Brocade 6520 delivers exceptional performance for growing and dynamic workloads through a combination of market-leading throughput and bandwidth utilization. With the unpredictability of virtualized workloads and cloud services, throughput becomes critical to ensuring that the network does not become the bottleneck. With 96 ports, the Brocade 6,520 provides an aggregate 1536 Gbps full-duplex throughput. Up to eight ISLs can be combined together in a 128 Gbps framed-based trunk. In addition, exchange-based Dynamic Path Selection (DPS) optimizes fabric-wide performance and load balancing by automatically routing data to the most efficient, available path in the fabric (see Figure 1). This augments Brocade ISL Trunking to provide more effective load balancing in certain configurations. Moreover, the enterprise-class capabilities of this switch yield 40 percent higher performance compared to 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) alternatives at a similar cost.

Simplified Management and Robust Network Analytics

Brocade Fabric Vision technology provides a breakthrough hardware and software solution that helps simplify monitoring, maximize network availability, and dramatically reduce costs. Featuring innovative monitoring, management, and diagnostic capabilities, Fabric Vision technology enables administrators to avoid problems before they impact operations, helping their organizations meet Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Fabric Vision technology includes:

• Monitoring and Alerting Policy Suite (MAPS): Provides an easy-to-use solution for pre-built, policy-based threshold monitoring and alerting. MAPS proactively monitors the health and performance of the SAN infrastructure to ensure application uptime and availability. By leveraging pre-built, rule-/policy-based templates, MAPS simplifies fabric-wide threshold configuration, monitoring, and alerting. Administrators can configure the entire fabric (or multiple fabrics) at one time using common rules and policies, or customize policies for specific ports or switch elements.
• Fabric Performance Impact (FPI) Monitoring: Leverages pre-defined MAPS policies to automatically detect and alert administrators to different latency severity levels, and identifies slow drain devices that could impact network performance. This feature uses advanced monitoring capabilities and intuitive MAPS dashboard reporting to indicate various latency severity levels, pinpointing exactly which devices are causing or are impacted by a bottlenecked port.
• Dashboards: Provides integrated dashboards that display an overall SAN health view, along with details on out-ofrange conditions, to help administrators easily identify trends and quickly pinpoint issues occurring on a switch or in a fabric.
• Configuration and Operational Monitoring Policy Automation Services Suite (COMPASS): Simplifies deployment, safeguards consistency, and increases operational efficiencies of larger environments with automated switch and fabric configuration services. Administrators can configure a template or adopt an existing configuration as a template and seamlessly deploy the configuration across the fabric. In addition, they can ensure that settings do not drift over time with COMPASS configuration and policy violation monitoring within Brocade Network Advisor dashboards.
• Brocade ClearLink Diagnostics: Ensures optical and signal integrity for Gen 5 Fibre Channel optics and cables, simplifying deployment and support of high-performance fabrics. ClearLink Diagnostic Port (D_Port) is an advanced capability of Gen 5 Fibre Channel platforms.
• Flow Vision: Enables administrators to identify, monitor, and analyze specific application flows in order to simplify troubleshooting, maximize performance, avoid congestion, and optimize resources. Flow Vision includes:
  • Flow Monitor: Provides comprehensive visibility into flows within the fabric, including the ability to automatically learn flows and nondisruptively monitor flow performance. Administrators can monitor all flows from a specific host to multiple targets/LUNs, from multiple hosts to a specific target/LUN, or across a specific ISL. Additionally, they can perform LUN-level monitoring of specific frame types to identify resource contention or congestion that is impacting application performance.
  • Flow Generator: Provides a builtin traffic generator for pre-testing and validating the data center infrastructure—including route verification and integrity of optics, cables, ports, back-end connections, and ISLs—for robustness before deploying applications.
• Forward Error Correction (FEC): Enables recovery from bit errors in ISLs, enhancing transmission reliability and performance.
• Credit Loss Recovery: Helps overcome performance degradation and congestion due to buffer credit loss.

Brocade Network Advisor

Brocade Network Advisor simplifies Gen 5 Fibre Channel management and helps users proactively diagnose and resolve issues to maximize uptime, increase operational efficiency, and reduce costs. The wizard-driven interface dramatically reduces deployment and configuration times by allowing fabrics, switches, and ports to be managed as groups. Customizable dashboards graphically display performance and health indicators out of the box, including all data captured using Brocade Fabric Vision technology. To accelerate troubleshooting, administrators can use dashboard playback to quickly review past events and identify problems in the fabric. In addition, dashboards and reports can be configured to show only the most relevant data, enabling administrators to more efficiently prioritize their actions and maintain network performance.

A Building Block for Virtualized, Private Cloud Storage

The Brocade 6520 provides a critical building block for today’s highly virtualized, private cloud storage environments. It simplifies server virtualization and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) management while meeting the high-throughput demands of Solid State Disks (SSDs). The Brocade 6520 also supports multitenancy in cloud environments through Virtual Fabrics, Quality of Service (QoS), and fabricbased zoning features.

The Brocade 6520 enables secure metro extension to virtual private or hybrid clouds with 10 Gbps Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) link support, as well as in-flight encryption and data compression to optimize bandwidth and minimize the risk of unauthorized access. With four times more in-flight encryption and compression ports than the Brocade 6510 Switch, the Brocade 6520 supports higher data volumes over long distance. The switch also features on-board data security and acceleration, minimizing the need for separate acceleration appliances to support distance extension. Internal fault-tolerant and enterprise-class RAS features help minimize downtime to support missioncritical cloud environments.

Brocade Global Services

Brocade Global Services has the expertise to help organizations build scalable, efficient cloud infrastructures. Leveraging 15 years of expertise in storage, networking, and virtualization, Brocade Global Services delivers worldclass professional services, technical support, network monitoring services, and education, enabling organizations to maximize their Brocade investments, accelerate new technology deployments, and optimize the performance of networking infrastructures.

Maximizing Investments

To help optimize technology investments, Brocade and its partners offer complete solutions that include professional services, technical support, and education.

Deployment:

Figure 1. Dynamic Path Selection (DPS) augments Brocade ISL Trunking to route data efficiently between multiple trunk groups.

Specifications:

	6520 Switch Specifications
System Architecture
Fibre Channel ports	Switch mode (default): 48-, 72-, and 96-port configurations (24-port increments through Ports on Demand [PoD] licenses); E, F, M, D, EX ports
Scalability	Full fabric architecture with a maximum of 239 switches
Certified maximum	6,000 active nodes; 56 switches, 19 hops in Brocade Fabric OS fabrics; larger fabrics certified as required
Performance	Fibre Channel: 2.125 Gbps line speed, full duplex; 4.25 Gbps line speed, full duplex; 8.5 Gbps line speed, full duplex; 10.53 Gbps line speed, full duplex; 14.025 Gbps line speed, full duplex; auto-sensing of 2, 4, 8, and 16 Gbps port speeds; 10 Gbps optionally programmable to fixed port speed
ISL trunking	Frame-based Trunking with up to eight 16 Gbps ports per ISL trunk; up to 128 Gbps per ISL trunk. Exchange-based load balancing across ISLs with DPS included in Brocade Fabric OS.
Aggregate bandwidth	1,536 Gbps: 96 ports × 16 Gbps data rate
Maximum fabric latency	Latency for locally switched ports is 700 ns; latency between port groups is 2.1 μsec, cut-through routing at 16 Gbps between locally switched groups. Encryption/compression is 5.5 μsec per node; Forward Error Correction (FEC) adds 400 ns between E_Ports (enabled by default).
Maximum frame size	2112 byte payload
Frame buffers	8,192 dynamically allocated
Classes of service	Class 2, Class 3, Class F (inter-switch frames)
Port types	D_Port (ClearLink Diagnostic Port), E_Port, EX_Port, F_Port, M_Port (Mirror Port); optional port type control
Data traffic types	Fabric switches supporting unicast
Media types	16 Gbps: Brocade 6520 requires Brocade hot-pluggable SFP+, LC connector; 16 Gbps SWL, LWL, ELWL 10 Gbps: Brocade 6520 requires Brocade hot-pluggable SFP+, LC connector; 10 Gbps SWL, LWL 8 Gbps: Brocade 6520 requires Brocade hot-pluggable SFP+, LC connector; 8 Gbps SWL, LWL, ELWL Fibre Channel distance subject to fiber-optic cable and port speed.
USB	One USB port for system log file downloads or firmware upgrades
Fabric services	Monitoring and Alerting Policy Suite (MAPS); Flow Vision; Top Talkers for E_Ports, F_Ports, and Fabric mode; Brocade Adaptive Networking (Ingress Rate Limiting, Traffic Isolation, QoS); Bottleneck Detection; Brocade Advanced Zoning (default zoning, port/WWN zoning, broadcast zoning); Dynamic Fabric Provisioning (DFP); Dynamic Path Selection (DPS); Brocade Extended Fabrics; Enhanced BB credit recovery; Enhanced Group Management (EGM); FDMI; Frame Redirection; Frame-based Trunking; FSPF; Integrated Routing; IPoFC; Brocade ISL Trunking; Management Server; NPIV; NTP v3; Port Fencing; Registered State Change Notification (RSCN); Reliable Commit Service (RCS); Server Application Optimization (SAO); Simple Name Server (SNS); Virtual Fabrics (Logical Switch, Logical Fabric)
Extension	Fibre Channel, in-flight compression (Brocade LZO) and encryption (AESGCM-256); integrated optional 10 Gbps Fibre Channel for DWDM MAN connectivity
Management
Supported management software	HTTP, SNMP v1/v3 (FE MIB, FC Management MIB), SSH v2; Auditing, Syslog; Brocade Advanced Web Tools; Brocade Network Advisor SAN Enterprise or Brocade Network Advisor SAN Professional/Professional Plus; Command Line Interface (CLI); SMI-S compliant; Administrative Domains; trial licenses for add-on capabilities
Security	AES-GCM-256 encryption on ISLs; DHCHAP (between switches and end devices), FCAP switch authentication; FIPS 140-2 L2-compliant, HTTPS, IPsec, IP filtering, LDAP with IPv6, OpenLDAP, Port Binding, RADIUS, TACACS+, User-defined RoleBased Access Control (RBAC), Secure Copy (SCP), Secure RPC, SFTP, SSH v2, SSL, Switch Binding, Trusted Switch
Management access	10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet (RJ-45), in-band over Fibre Channel, serial port (RJ- 45), and one USB port
Diagnostics	ClearLink optics and cable diagnostics, including electrical/optical loopback, link traffic/latency/distance; flow mirroring; builtin flow generator; POST and embedded online/offline diagnostics, including environmental monitoring, FCping and Pathinfo (FC traceroute), frame viewer, nondisruptive daemon restart, port mirroring, optics health monitoring, power monitoring, RAStrace logging, and Rolling Reboot Detection (RRD)
Mechanical
Enclosure	Front-to-back airflow; power from back, 2U Back-to-front airflow; power from back, 2U
Size	Width: 429.25 mm (16.90 in.) Height: 86.74 mm (3.42 in.) Depth: 609.75 mm (24.01 in.)
System weight	16.92 kg (37.3 lb) with two power supply FRUs, without transceivers
Environmental
Operating environment	Temperature: 0° to 40°C/32°F to 104°F Humidity: 10% to 85% (non-condensing)
Non-operating environment	Temperature: −25° to 70°C/−13°F to 158°F Humidity: 10% to 90% (non-condensing
Operating altitude	Up to 3000 m (9843 ft)
Storage altitude	Up to 12 km (39,370 ft)
Shock	Operating: Up to 20 G, 6 ms half-sine Non-operating: Half sine, 33 G 11 ms, 3/eg axis
Vibration	Operating: 0.5 g sine, 0.4 grms random, 5 Hz to 500 Hz Non-operating: 2.0 g sine, 1.1 grms random, 5 Hz to 500 Hz
Heat dissipation	96 ports at 1,582 BTU/hr
Airflow	Three hot-swappable, redundant fans; reversible airflow options (front-to-back and back-to-front); maximum 109 CFM (cu. ft./ min); nominal 33 CFM
Power
Power supply	Dual, hot-swappable redundant power supplies with integrated system cooling fans
AC input	85 V to 264 V ~5 A to 2.5 A
AC Input line frequency	47 Hz to 63 Hz
AC Power consumption	464 W with all 96 ports populated with 16 Gbps SWL optics 183 W for empty chassis with no optics

Frequently Asked Questions:

Brocade provides the industry’s leading family of Storage Area Network (SAN) switches, including the Gen 5 Fibre Channel Brocade 6520, 6510, and 6505 Switches. These high-performance, highly reliable Fibre Channel switches address a wide range of business requirements, for small shared storage environments all the way up to the most demanding enterprise data centers.

What is Gen 5 Fibre Channel?

Gen 5 Fibre Channel is the purpose-built, data center-proven network infrastructure for storage, delivering unmatched reliability, simplicity, and 16 Gbps performance. Brocade switches with Gen 5 Fibre Channel unleash the full potential of high-density server virtualization, cloud architectures, and next-generation storage.

What is the Brocade 6520 Switch?

The Brocade 6520 Switch is a high-density, purpose-built building block for large enterprise data centers to support consolidation, growing workloads, and highly virtualized, private cloud storage environments. Delivering market-leading Gen 5 Fibre Channel technology and unmatched port density, the Brocade 6520 provides industry-leading scalability, reliability, and performance in a flexible, easy-to-deploy enterprise-class switch, enabling greater operational efficiency and business continuity.

Designed for maximum flexibility, this high-density, enterprise-class switch offers “pay-as-you-grow” scalability with Ports on Demand (PoD). Organizations can quickly, easily, and cost-effectively scale from 48 to 96 ports in 24-port increments, each supporting 2, 4, 8, 10, or 16 Gbps. In addition, flexible, high-speed 16 Gbps and 8 Gbps optics allow organizations to deploy bandwidth on demand to meet growing data center needs. The Brocade 6520 also comes standard with dual redundant power supplies and integrated fans that support optional airflow configurations.

What is the Brocade 6510 Switch?

The Brocade 6510 is a high-performance, enterprise-class switch that meets the demands of hyper-scale, private cloud storage environments by delivering market-leading Gen 5 Fibre Channel technology and capabilities that support highly virtualized environments. Designed to enable maximum flexibility and reliability, the Brocade 6510 Switch offers “pay-as-you-grow” scalability with Ports on Demand (PoD). Organizations can quickly, easily, and cost-effectively scale from 24 to 48 ports in 12-port increments, each supporting 2, 4, 8, 10, or 16 Gbps in an efficiently designed 1U package. In addition, flexible, high-speed 16 Gbps and 8 Gbps optics allow organizations to deploy bandwidth on demand to meet growing data center needs. The Brocade 6510 comes standard with dual redundant power supplies and integrated fans that support optional airflow configurations.

What is the Brocade 6505 Switch?

The Brocade 6505 Switch with Gen 5 Fibre Channel provides exceptional price/performance value, combining flexibility, simplicity, and enterprise-class functionality in an entry-level switch. Designed to enable maximum flexibility and reliability, the Brocade 6505 enables fast, easy, and cost-effective scaling from 12 to 24 ports using Ports on Demand (PoD) capabilities, and supports 2, 4, 8, or 16 Gbps speeds in an efficiently designed 1U package. The Brocade 6505 comes standard with a single power supply and integrated fans. A second, optional power supply provides additional redundancy for increased resiliency.

What distinguishes Brocade 6520, 6510, and 6505 Switches from other Brocade switches?

Brocade 6520, 6510, and 6505 Switches with Gen 5 Fibre Channel are designed to unleash the full potential of private cloud storage and virtualization. With unmatched scalability, reliability, functionality, and 16 Gbps performance, Brocade 6520, 6510, and 6505 Switches are the strategic platforms for transforming current SAN fabrics into cloud-optimized SANs. These switches are designed to increase business agility while providing non-stop access to information and reducing infrastructure and administrative costs. The capabilities of these switches yield 40 percent higher performance compared to 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) alternatives at a similar cost.

See the table below for a detailed comparison of these switches.

	Brocade 6520 with Gen 5 Fibre Channel	Brocade 5300	Brocade 6510 with Gen 5 Fibre Channel	Brocade 5100	Brocade 6505 with Gen 5 Fibre Channel	Brocade 300
Port Configurations	48, 72, 96 ports	48, 64, 80 ports	24, 36, 48 ports	24, 32, 40 ports	12, 24 ports	8, 16, 24 ports
Supported Port Speeds	2, 4, 8, 10, 16 Gbps	1, 2, 4, 8 Gbps	2, 4, 8, 10, 16 Gbps	1, 2, 4, 8 Gbps	2, 4, 8, 16 Gbps	1, 2, 4, 8 Gbps
Total Bandwidth	1536 Gbps	640 Gbps	768 Gbps	320 Gbps	384 Gbps	192 Gbps
ISL Trunking Bandwidth	128 Gbps	64 Gbps	128 Gbps	64 Gbps	128 Gbps	64 Gbps
Power Supply	Dual, hotswappable	Dual, hotswappable	Dual, hotswappable	Dual, hotswappable	Single, hotswappable, optional second power supply	Single, fixed
Airflow	Front-to-back and back-to-front options	Back-to-front	Front-to-back and back-tofront options	Back-to-front	Back-to-front	Back-to-front
Energy Efficiency	0.30 watts/Gbps	0.43 watts/Gbps	0.14 watts/Gbps	0.28 watts/Gbps	0.14 watts/Gbps	0.30 watts/Gbps
Brocade ClearLink Diagnostic Ports (D_Ports)	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
In-Flight Encryption and Compression	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No
10 Gbps Native Fibre Channel	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No
Forward Error Correction (FEC)	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
ASIC-Enabled Buffer Credit Loss Detection and Automatic Recovery at Virtual Channel Level	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
Concurrent Support for Top Talkers and Fibre Channel Routing	Yes	No	Yes	No	No support for Fibre Channel routing	No support for Fibre Channel routing
E-Port Top Talkers	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No

Benefits of Gen 5 Fibre Channel Technoloy

Feature	Condor3	Condor2	Benefits
More Buffers per ASIC	8192	2048	Congestion avoidance, better performance
Monitoring/Diagnostic Enhancements	Yes	Partial	Avoid fabric problems
Forward Error Correction	Yes	No	Automatic recovery of transmission errors enhances reliability of transmission, which results in higher availability and performance
In-flight Encryption/Compression*	Yes	No	Secure ISL connectivity and compression of ISL traffic for bandwidth optimization
10 Gbps Native Fibre Channel*	Yes	No	Ability to configure any Gen 5 Fibre Channel port as 10 Gbps Fibre Channel eliminates the need for specialized ports for optical MAN (10 Gbps DWDM) connectivity
ASIC-Enabled Buffer Credit Loss Detection and Automatic Recovery at Virtual Channel Level	Yes	No	Ensures application availability and performance by automatically recovering lost buffer credits without requiring any upfront configuration or user intervention
Auto Link Tuning for Backend Ports	Yes	No	Optimizes the link automatically
E_Port Top Talkers and Concurrency with Fibre Channel Routing	Yes	No	Monitors top bandwidthconsuming flows in real time on each individual ISL and EX_Ports

The Future of Fibre Channel Technology

Is Fibre Channel still the best infrastructure for data center storage?

Networks need to evolve in order to support the growing demands of highly virtualized environments and cloud architectures. Today, Fibre Channel is the de facto standard for storage networking in the data center. The introduction of Gen 5 Fibre Channel extends the life of this robust, reliable, and high-performance technology. Gen 5 Fibre Channel is the purpose-built, data center-proven network infrastructure for storage, delivering unmatched reliability, simplicity, and 16 Gbps performance. Brocade switches with Gen 5 Fibre Channel unleash the full potential of high-density server virtualization, cloud architectures, and next-generation storage. This enables organizations to continue leveraging their existing IT investments as they solve their most difficult business challenges.

What is the future of Fibre Channel technology in the data center?

Fibre Channel will continue to play a vital role in the data center of the future. Its robust capabilities make it the technology of choice today, and organizations around the world have shown their confidence by investing over $50 billion in Fibre Channel infrastructure. These organizations must be able to leverage those investments for the long term as they face new business demands. As the leader in Fibre Channel solutions, Brocade continues to invest heavily in R&D, along with its broad ecosystem of industry partners.

Is Fibre Channel better than Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), iSCSI, or NAS for storage networks and clouds?

All of these technologies have value for specific use cases. But when it comes to the elevated demands of virtualization and cloudbased architectures, only Fibre Channel is the proven and trusted networking technology that meets the stringent requirements for zero-data loss and flow control with enterprise-class, mission-critical storage applications. Robust Fibre Channel infrastructures are specifically built for the reliability and performance that data centers demand.

What value does 16 Gbps port speed provide when I currently have sufficient bandwidth at 4/8 Gbps?

High-performance, highly reliable Gen 5 Fibre Channel solutions provide the ideal networking infrastructure to accommodate the growing workloads and transformational changes in storage environments. No other technology is currently capable of supporting the highly demanding requirements associated with growing virtualized and private cloud infrastructures.

Emerging and evolving critical workloads and higher-density virtualization are continuing to push the limits of SAN infrastructure. In addition, with new technologies such as Solid State Drives (SSD), the focus is shifting from storage to interconnect. This trend is driving ever-higher I/O and bandwidth requirements, shortening the time horizon when speeds beyond 8 Gbps are needed. Brocade 6520, 6510, and 6505 Switches feature industry-leading Gen 5 Fibre Channel performance; 420 million framesper-second switching; and 1536 Gbps, 768 Gbps, or 384 Gbps switch bandwidth to address these next-generation I/O- and bandwidth-intensive applications.

In addition, Gen 5 Fibre Channel platforms and Brocade Fabric OS® (FOS) 7.0 or higher introduce functionality—such as Brocade Fabric Vision™ technology, which includes Brocade ClearLink Diagnostics and Forward Error Correction (FEC), as well as Dynamic Fabric Provisioning (DFP), Buffer Credit Recovery, and in-flight compression and encryption*—to reduce operational costs and complexity, and improve the reliability and availability of a fabric.

*In-flight compression and encryption are not supported on the Brocade 6505.

What Brocade Global Services offerings are available for Brocade 6520, 6510, and 6505 Switches?

Brocade offers assessment, design, implementation, and Brocade Resident Consultant services as well as Brocade Technical Support for Brocade 6520, 6510, and 6505 Switches.

New Features

What is Brocade Fabric Vision technology?

Brocade Fabric Vision technology is an advanced hardware and software solution that combines capabilities from the Brocade Gen 5 Fibre Channel ASIC, Brocade FOS, and Brocade Network Advisor to help administrators address problems before they impact operations, accelerate new application deployments, and dramatically reduce operational costs.

Fabric Vision technology provides unprecedented visibility and insight across the storage network through innovative diagnostic, monitoring, and management technology.

What features and capabilities does Brocade Fabric Vision technology offer?

Brocade Fabric Vision technology, an extension of Brocade Gen 5 Fibre Channel solutions, offers technology innovation that is unmatched in the industry. Fabric Vision technology includes:

• Monitoring and Alerting Policy Suite (MAPS): Provides a policy-based monitoring and alerting suite that proactively monitors the health and performance of the SAN infrastructure to ensure application uptime and availability.
• Fabric Performance Impact (FPI) Monitoring: Uses pre-defined thresholds and alerts in conjunction with MAPS to automatically detect and alert administrators to severe levels or transient spikes of latency, and identifies slow drain devices that could impact the network.
• Configuration and Operational Monitoring Policy Automation Services Suite (COMPASS): Simplifies deployment, safeguards consistency, and increases operational efficiencies of larger environments with automated switch and fabric configuration services. Administrators can configure a template or adopt an existing configuration as a template and seamlessly deploy the configuration across the fabric. In addition, they can ensure that settings do not drift over time with COMPASS configuration and policy violation monitoring within Brocade Network Advisor dashboards.
• Dashboard: Provides at-a-glance views of switch status and various conditions that are contributing to the switch status, enabling users to get instant visibility into any hot spots at a switch level and take corrective actions.
• Brocade ClearLink Diagnostics: Leverages the unique Brocade Diagnostic Port (D_Port) mode to ensure optical and signal integrity for Gen 5 Fibre Channel optics and cables, simplifying deployment and support of high-performance fabrics.
• Flow Vision: Provides a comprehensive tool that allows administrators to identify, monitor, and analyze specific application and data flows in order to maximize performance, avoid congestion, and optimize resources.
• Forward Error Correction (FEC): Automatically detects and recovers from bit errors, enhancing transmission reliability and performance.
• Credit Loss Recovery: Automatically detects and recovers buffer credit loss at the Virtual Channel (VC) level, providing protection against performance degradation and enhancing application availability

What are the advantages of Brocade Fabric Vision technology?

Brocade Fabric Vision technology maximizes uptime, simplifies SAN management, and provides unprecedented visibility and insight across the storage network. Offering innovative diagnostic, monitoring, and management capabilities, Fabric Vision technology helps administrators avoid problems, maximize application performance, and dramatically reduce operational costs.

What is Brocade ClearLink Diagnostics?

The Brocade ClearLink Diagnostics tool, a patent-pending technology, leverages Brocade ClearLink Diagnostic Port (D_Port) mode to ensure optical and signal integrity for Gen 5 Fibre Channel optics and cables, simplifying deployment and support of highperformance fabrics. By proactively verifying the integrity of critical transceivers, organizations can quickly address any physical layer issues without the need for special optical testers.

ClearLink Diagnostics allows users to automate a battery of tests to measure and validate latency and distance across the switch links, as well as verify the integrity of the fiber and 16 Gbps transceivers in the fabric—either prior to deployment or when there are suspected physical layer issues. With ClearLink Diagnostics, only the ports attached to the link being tested need to go offline, leaving the rest of the ports to operate online.

In addition to switch-to-switch link validation, Brocade FOS 7.4 provides several enhancements, including:

• Dynamic ClearLink Diagnostics support between Gen 5 Fibre Channel switches and QLogic and Emulex fabric adapters when running at 16 Gbps speed, allowing administrators to initiate tests from the adapter
• The ability to configure settings to ensure consistency and automatically run D_Port tests based on port or switch events, including links over xWDM
• D_Port pre-provisioning to improve operational control and avoid costly mistakes
• D_Port integration into MAPS for threshold-based monitoring and alerting
• Port LED for a visual indication for D_Port test result failures
• Link power (dB) loss information with D_Port test results

Through collaboration with industry partners, Brocade will extend ClearLink Diagnostics to additional end devices and adapters, providing end-to-end physical layer diagnostics and validation.

What is MAPS?

Brocade Monitoring and Alerting Policy Suite, or MAPS, is a new, easy-to-use, policy-based threshold monitoring and alerting suite that proactively monitors the health and performance of the SAN infrastructure to ensure application uptime and availability. By leveraging pre-built, pre-validated, rule-/policy-based templates, MAPS takes the guesswork out of defining appropriate rules and actions, simplifying threshold configuration, monitoring, and alerting. With MAPS, organizations can apply thresholds and alerts via a simple two-step process:

1. Define all host ports, storage ports, and E_Ports that belong to a specific group, or use the pre-defined default groups.
2. Go to the list of pre-defined policies (each with more than 250 highly tuned rules) and select one to apply to that group, or create a custom policy

Organizations can configure an entire fabric (or multiple fabrics) at one time using common rules and policies, or customize rules for specific ports—all through a single dialog. The integrated dashboard displays a switch health report, along with details on out-ofpolicy conditions, to help administrators quickly pinpoint potential issues and easily identify trends and other behaviors occurring on a switch or fabric

What is Flow Vision?

The Brocade Flow Vision tool suite allows administrators to identify, monitor, and analyze specific application and data flows in order to maximize performance, avoid congestion, and optimize resources. Flow Vision includes:

• Flow Learning: Enables administrators to non-disruptively discover all flows that travel to or from a specific host or storage port or traverse ISLs/IFLs, and monitor fabric-wide application performance. In addition, administrators can discover top and bottom bandwidth-consuming devices and manage capacity planning.
• Flow Monitoring: Provides comprehensive visibility into flows in the fabric, including the ability to automatically learn (discover) flows and non-disruptively monitor flow performance. Users can monitor all flows from a specific host to multiple targets/LUNs or from multiple hosts to a specific target/LUN; monitor all flows across a specific ISL; or perform LUN-level monitoring of specific frame types to identify resource contention or congestion that is impacting application performance.
• Flow Generator: Provides a built-in traffic generator for pre-testing and validating the SAN infrastructure, including internal connections within a switch, for robustness before deploying applications—without requiring 16 Gbps hosts, targets, or external traffic generators.
• Flow Mirroring: Provides the ability to non-disruptively create copies of specific application and data flows, or frame types, for in-depth analysis

What is Fabric Performance Impact (FPI) monitoring?

FPI monitoring automatically detects and alerts administrators to severe levels or transient spikes of latency, and identifies slow drain devices that could impact the network. This feature uses advanced monitoring capabilities and intuitive MAPS dashboard reporting to indicate various latency severity levels, pinpointing which devices are causing or are impacted by a bottlenecked port. This feature also provides automatic mitigation or recovery from the effects of slow drain devices.

FPI is an invaluable tool for SAN administrators, helping them to avoid problems that can impact application performance. At the same time, it provides Brocade users with capabilities not offered by third-party tools.

What is integrated metro connectivity?

Brocade 6520 and 6510 Switches support integrated SAN extension over native Fibre Channel (metro connections up to 100 km) for replication and backup over distance. Native Fibre Channel connections now include in-flight compression and encryption as well as optional support for 10 Gbps Fibre Channel over Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) and dark fiber. To take advantage of the 10 Gbps Fibre Channel support, organizations need a software license and 10 Gbps optics.

How many ports can be configured on the Brocade 6520 and 6510 for 10 Gbps Fibre Channel support?

On both the Brocade 6520 and 6510 with Brocade FOS 7.1, the first eight ports can be configured to operate at 10 Gbps Fibre Channel for data center connectivity over DWDM. With Brocade FOS 7.2, all Fibre Channel ports on the Brocade 6520 and 6510 can be configured to operate at 10 Gbps Fibre Channel.

What are the benefits of in-flight compression over Inter-Switch Links (ISLs)?

In-flight compression optimizes network performance within the data center and over long-distance links. Data is compressed at the source and uncompressed at the destination. Performance varies by data type, but Brocade uses an efficient algorithm to generally achieve 2:1 compression with minimal impact on performance. Compression can be used in conjunction with in-flight encryption. In-flight compression is available only on Gen 5 Fibre Channel port blades.

What are the benefits of in-flight encryption over ISLs?

In-flight encryption minimizes the risk of unauthorized access for traffic within the data center and over long-distance links. It is switch-to-switch encryption, not device or data-at-rest encryption. Data is encrypted at the source and decrypted at the destination. Encryption and decryption are performed in hardware using the AES-GCM-256 algorithm, minimizing any impact on performance. Encryption can be used in conjunction with in-flight compression. In-flight encryption is available only on Brocade 6520 and 6510 Switches and Brocade DCX 8510 Backbone Gen 5 Fibre Channel port blades, and is complementary to data-at-rest encryption provided by the Brocade Encryption Switch and the Brocade FS8-18 Encryption Blade.

How many ports can be configured on Brocade 6520 and 6510 Switches for in-flight compression and encryption?

For in-flight compression and encryption, the following can be configured:

• Up to sixteen ports at 8 Gbps and up to eight ports at 16 Gbps per Brocade
• 6520 Switch
• Up to four ports at 8 Gbps and up to two ports at 16 Gbps per Brocade 6510 Switch

No license is required for this feature.

How can Dynamic Fabric Provisioning simplify server deployment?

Dynamic Fabric Provisioning (DFP) allows organizations to eliminate fabric reconfiguration when adding or replacing servers through the virtualization of host World Wide Names (WWNs). It combines Brocade switch and adapter technology to reduce or eliminate the need to modify zoning or Logical Unit Number (LUN) masking. In addition, DFP enables pre-provisioning of virtual WWNs, helping organizations eliminate time-consuming steps when deploying new equipment or moving devices within a switch. DFP currently requires Brocade adapters in the host.

How does the Condor3 switching ASIC compare to previous generations?

The Condor3 ASIC is the industry’s most powerful and efficient switching technology. In addition to Gen 5 Fibre Channel 16 Gbps speed, it includes more bandwidth (768 Gbps), faster I/O performance (420 million frames switched per second), more functionality (including D_Port, in-flight encryption and compression, and Forward Error Correction [FEC]), and higher energy efficiency (less than 1 watt/Gbps).

What other enhancements and features are included in Brocade FOS 7.2?

Brocade FOS 7.2 includes:

• New Brocade Fabric Vision technology features, including:
  • Monitoring and Alerting Policy Suite (MAPS)
  • Flow Vision
• Several other software features and enhancements. Refer to the Brocade FOS 7.2 release notes on www.mybrocade.com for additional information.

What other enhancements and features are included in Brocade FOS 7.4?

Brocade FOS 7.4 includes:

• Peer zoning and target-driven zoning
• IP extension functionalities with the Brocade 7840 Extension Switch
• FCIP distance extension enhancements
• Fabric Vision enhancements
  • NPIV device login scalability - Back-end port monitoring
  • FCIP circuit QoS levels (to ensure each circuit QoS level is within operating parameters)
  • Basic monitoring without a Fabric Vision license (equivalent to Brocade Fabric Watch)
  • Slow drain device quarantine
  • All F_Port Flow Learning and flow dashboard
• Improved system security and RAS
• Routing and FCR enhancements
• Customer-driven enhancements and RFEs
• All obsolete Fabric Watch and Advanced Performance Monitoring capabilities migrated to MAPS and Flow Vision

What other enhancements and features are included in Brocade FOS 7.3?

To help maximize uptime, optimize end-to-end performance, and reduce costs, Brocade FOS 7.3 includes these enhancements:

• Automatic firmware sync
• Management port monitoring
• NPIV base device logout
• Zoning enhancements
• Security enhancements
• FEC negotiation with Host Bus Adapter (HBA)
• ICL scalability improvements
• FCR enhancements
• Frame discard log collection
• Read diagnostic parameters
• Link cable beacon
• Power on/off core blades
• Simple command for clear counters
• Fosexec enhancement

What other enhancements and features are included in Brocade FOS 7.1?

Brocade FOS 7.1 includes:

• ClearLink Diagnostic Port (D_Port) enhancements
  • D_Port support (including auto-configuration support) from Brocade Gen 5 Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters (HBAs), such as the Brocade 1860 Fabric Adapter, to Brocade Gen 5 Fibre Channel switches
  • D_Port support on Brocade Access Gateway
  • Other D_Port extensions: Users can specify the number of frames, frame size, test duration, and more
• Other Gen 5 Fibre Channel platform RAS enhancements
  • FEC, credit recovery from Brocade 16 Gbps HBAs to 16 Gbps switches (requires Brocade HBA driver 3.2)
• In-flight encryption and compression enhancements
  • Supports more ports for encryption/compression at reduced speeds
• Fabric services enhancements
  • FDMI (Fabric Device Management Interface) enhancements
  • Performance optimization on long-distance ISLs
• FCR enhancements
  • Removes support for Interop mode 2 and Interop mode 3
  • In-flight encryption/compression on EX_Ports
  • Pathinfo over FCR
  • Credit recovery on EX_Ports
• Additional RAS enhancements
  • Bottleneck detection, backend link monitoring, edge hold time, credit recovery RASlog enhancements
  • RASlog management, audit log for CLI, CLI history enhancements
  • SFP monitoring, pathinfo enhancements
• Access Gateway enhancements (Brocade 6510 and 6505 only)
  • D_Port support (16 Gbps only)
  • Credit recovery enhancements (both 8 Gbps and 16 Gbps)
  • FEC support on F_Ports and N_Ports (16 Gbps only)
• Brocade FOS security and user management enhancements
  • TACACS+ support in Brocade FOS
  • LDAP support enhancements, including OpenLDAP support
• FICON enhancements
  • FICON support for the Brocade 6510

What other enhancements and diagnostic features are included in Brocade FOS 7.0?

Brocade FOS 7.0 includes additional RASlog messages for optics failures; Frame Viewer for Class 3 discards; Forward Error Correction (FEC) on ISLs; additional Audit Log support for Brocade Fabric Watch events; user-defined Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and other security enhancements; the addition of E_Ports to Top Talkers; and port fencing due to CRC errors, transmission errors, and invalid Traffic Isolation Zones.

What power management features are included?

Brocade Gen 5 Fibre Channel switches (Brocade 6520, 6510, and 6505 Switches) and backbones (Brocade DCX 8510 Backbone) support real-time power measurement, providing insight into power consumption in the fabric.

Brocade 6520, 6510, and 6505 Hardware

Can an existing 8 Gbps Brocade switch be upgraded to 16 Gbps functionality?

No. An 8 Gbps switch will not support 16 Gbps capabilities.

What types of encryption are available?

There are generally two approaches to encryption: data-at-rest and data-in-flight. Data-at-rest encryption encrypts the data so that it is stored on the destination disk or tape in an encrypted form. Data-in-flight encryption (Brocade 6520 and 6510 only) encrypts data as it travels between two points in a network. Data is encrypted as it leaves a source port and decrypted as it arrives at the destination port. Technologies that provide encryption for data-in-flight include IPSec and MACsec (802.1AE) for Ethernet, and FCSP for Fibre Channel. Data-at-rest and data-in-flight encryption are complementary technologies that serve different purposes, and each may be required in order to achieve regulatory compliance.

Are Brocade Small Form-Factor Pluggables (SFPs) required for the Gen 5 Fibre Channel switches?

Yes. Brocade 6520, 6510, and 6505 Switches require Brocade-branded SFPs.

Why do Brocade 6520, 6510, and 6505 Switches require Brocade SFP optics?

This provides quality control that in turn avoids application downtime. The greater the port speed—especially 16 Gbps—the less tolerance that switches have for out-of-spec wavelengths, which can lead to port failure and application interruption.

Are supported cable distances affected by 16 Gbps?

Yes. Supported distances are reduced as Fibre Channel speed increases. See the table below.

Link Distance with Speed and Fiber Type (meters)

Transceiver Type	Form Factor	Speed	Multi-Mode Max Distance				Single Mode Max Distance
			OM1	OM2	OM3	OM4	9 μm
SWL	SFP+	16 Gbps	15 m	35 m	100 m	125 m	Not applicable
	SFP+	10 Gbps	33 m	82 m	300 m	550 m
	SFP+	8 Gbps	21 m	50 m	150 m	190 m
LWL	SFP+	16 Gbps	Not applicable				10 km
	SFP+	10 Gbps					10 km
	SFP+	8 Gbps					10 km, 25 km
SFP+	SFP+	16 Gbps	Not applicable				10 km, 25 km

Will Brocade 6520, 6510, and 6505 Switches work with existing firmware versions in current fabrics?

Brocade 6520 Switches require Brocade FOS 7.1 or higher. Brocade 6510 Switches require Brocade FOS 7.0 or higher. Brocade 6505 Switches require Brocade FOS 7.0.1 or higher. Brocade 6520, 6510, and 6505 Switches are compatible with all 8 Gbps platforms and 4 Gbps platforms operating with the appropriate firmware. All other legacy devices running prior versions of Brocade FOS are supported only through Fibre Channel routing. For complete support information, please refer to the respective Brocade FOS release notes.

Can Brocade 6520, 6510, or 6505 Switches be connected to legacy McDATA devices?

Connecting Brocade 6520, 6510, or 6505 Switches to legacy McDATA devices is supported only through Fibre Channel routing.

Brocade 6520, 6510, and 6505 Switch Software

What optional software licenses are available for the Brocade 6520 Switch?

Optional value-add licenses for the Brocade 6520 include: Brocade Fabric Vision technology, Integrated Routing, 10 Gbps Fibre Channel extension, Ports on Demand (PoD), Brocade Extended Fabrics, and Brocade ISL Trunking. Brocade Server Application Optimization (SAO) and Brocade Adaptive Networking are now included as part of Brocade FOS 7.1, so no software license is required for these features on the Brocade 6520.

What optional software licenses are available for the Brocade 6510 Switch?

Optional value-add licenses for the Brocade 6510 include: Brocade Fabric Vision technology, Integrated Routing, FICON CUP, 10 Gbps Fibre Channel extension, Ports on Demand (PoD), Brocade Extended Fabrics, and Brocade ISL Trunking. Brocade Server Application Optimization (SAO) and Brocade Adaptive Networking are now included as part of Brocade FOS 7.2, so no software license is required for these features on the Brocade 6510.

What optional software licenses are available for the Brocade 6505 Switch?

Optional value-add licenses for the Brocade 6505 include: Brocade Fabric Vision technology, Ports on Demand (PoD), Brocade Extended Fabrics, and Brocade ISL Trunking. Brocade Server Application Optimization (SAO) and Brocade Adaptive Networking are now included as part of Brocade FOS 7.2, so no software license is required for these features on the Brocade 6505.

How will Brocade Fabric Vision technology be offered?

Some Fabric Vision technology features and capabilities, such as Brocade ClearLink Diagnostics, are provided as base-level features of Brocade Fabric OS. Other features, such as MAPS and Flow Vision, are available through an optional Fabric Vision license. Refer to your OEM for specific details on licensing and pricing.

How do I upgrade to Fabric Vision technology?

Customers who have existing licenses for both Advanced Performance Monitoring and Brocade Fabric Watch will automatically receive Brocade Fabric Vision technology capabilities when they install Brocade FOS 7.2.0. or higher, without having the optional Fabric Vision license installed.

Customers who have either Brocade Fabric Watch or Advanced Performance Monitoring installed (but not both) and want Fabric Vision capabilities—including MAPS and Flow Vision—can upgrade to Fabric Vision by purchasing and installing the other license. Customers who do not purchase the other license will continue to have the same functionality when they upgrade to Brocade FOS 7.2.0 or higher.

Customers who have the Enterprise License Bundle installed will automatically be upgraded to Fabric Vision capabilities when they install Brocade FOS 7.2.0 or higher.

Refer to your OEM for specific details on upgrading to Fabric Vision capabilities.

What key SAN management capabilities are provided by Brocade Network Advisor?

Brocade Network Advisor provides comprehensive management of data center SAN fabrics, including configuration, monitoring, diagnostics, best-practices validation, and management of Brocade DCX 8510 Backbones, Brocade DCX Backbones, Brocade SAN directors and SAN switches (including Brocade Gen 5 Fibre Channel platforms), Host Bus Adapters (HBAs), and Converged Network Adapters (CNAs). Brocade Network Advisor 12.1 provides support for Monitoring and Alerting Policy Suite (MAPS) and Flow Vision, part of Brocade Fabric Vision technology.

Brocade Network Advisor also provides out-of-the-box support for leading data center management solutions from IBM, HP, and EMC, as well as seamless support for leading hypervisors from VMware and Microsoft.

Is Fabric Vision technology integrated with Brocade Network Advisor?

Yes, Brocade Fabric Vision technology is integrated with Brocade Network Advisor. This technology provides customizable health and performance dashboard views to simplify SAN configuration and management, enable proactive management by pinpointing problems faster, and reduce operational costs.

With Fabric Vision technology integrated into Brocade Network Advisor, organizations can:

• Quickly and easily configure and monitor data center fabrics based on MAPS groups and policies
• Identify, monitor, and analyze data and application flows to maximize performance
• Reduce time spent on repetitive tasks by deploying MAPS policies and rules across the fabric, or multiple fabrics, from a single dialog
• Run diagnostic tests on optics and cables to quickly identify and isolate potential fabric issues
• Automatically monitor and detect network congestion in the fabric, and identify which devices or hosts are impacted by a bottlenecked port
• Minimize downtime and accelerate troubleshooting with live monitoring, integrated diagnostics, and point-in-time playback

What other simplified management tools are available for Brocade 6520, 6510, and 6505 Switches?

Brocade 6520, 6510, and 6505 Switches support EZSwitchSetup for intuitive “plug-and-play” deployment.

What is Brocade Access Gateway mode?

Brocade Access Gateway mode can make a switch appear transparent to hosts or the network fabric. With a switch configured in Access Gateway mode, F_Ports connect to the fabric as N_Ports rather than E_Ports. This allows more hosts (and VMs) to access the fabric without increasing the number of switches—thereby simplifying configuration and reducing the number of Domain IDs to manage. Access Gateway enhancements include Brocade Frame-based Trunking, QoS, ClearLink Diagnostic Ports (D_Ports), FEC, and interoperability with multivendor fabrics. Refer to Brocade FOS release notes for additional Access Gateway enhancements.

What switches support Access Gateway mode?

Brocade 6510, 6505, 5100, and 300 Switches, as well as Brocade 50xx and 40xx Blade Server Switches support Access Gateway mode. Brocade Access Gateway mode is not supported on the Brocade 6520.

Do I need a license to utilize Brocade Virtual Fabrics features?

No. Brocade Virtual Fabrics capabilities for the Brocade 6520 and 6510 Switches are included as part of the base Brocade FOS software (not supported on the Brocade 6505).

Brocade 6510 Mainframe Support

What do mainframe environments gain by using Brocade 6510 Switches?

Brocade 6510 Switches provide significant value for System z environments, including:

• Users can immediately capitalize on 16 Gbps connectivity for System z. The Brocade 6510 Switch delivers 48 ports at full 16 Gbps speed without oversubscription.
• At 0.14 watt/Gbps, the Brocade 6510 Switch frees up limited power and cooling resources to support more mainframe and storage equipment.
• Brocade Virtual Fabrics capabilities allow data centers supporting both open systems and System z to logically partition a switch and SAN fabric into Fibre Channel and FICON environments. This enables the data center to reduce network infrastructure costs and improve return on investments, while keeping Fibre Channel and FICON management and traffic flows separate.
• For data replication and backup over distance, the combination of Brocade 6510 and Brocade 7800 Extension Switches provides powerful extension capabilities that include disk-write acceleration over extended Fibre Channel and FCIP links (called Fast Write), FICON Tape Pipelining to accelerate tape reads and writes, and FICON Global Mirror Disk Emulation to accelerate disk reads when using IBM Global Mirror.
• Brocade Top Talkers and Adaptive Networking capabilities help optimize FICON environments and application service levels.

Can a single Brocade 6510 Switch with mixed FICON and Fibre Channel traffic use CUP to manage the system?

If CUP is used to manage the FICON environment, all FICON and Fibre Channel ports are visible and can be managed using CUP. If an organization is using Brocade Virtual Fabrics and “Logical Switch,” CUP can be used to manage only those ports in the partition to which it is defined.

Can I manage a FICON fabric with Brocade DCFM and Brocade Network Advisor?

Brocade Data Center Fabric Manager (DCFM) 10.4.1 supports only 8 Gbps Brocade DCX platforms and switches. Brocade Network Advisor 11.1.2 and above supports the entire Brocade DCX 8510, Brocade DCX, and Brocade switch product families, and is required for managing the Gen 5 Fibre Channel platforms in FICON environments.

Documentation:

Download the Brocade 6520 Switch Datasheet (PDF).