Brocade G620 Switch
24- and 48-Port Fibre Channel Switch with 24 x 32Gb Fibre Channel SFP+

Features:

Maximize Performance for Application and Solid State Storage Architectures

Faced with unpredictable virtualized workloads and growing flash storage environments, organizations need to ensure that the network does not become the bottleneck. The Brocade G620 delivers increased performance for growing and dynamic workloads through a combination of market-leading throughput and low latency across 32 Gbps and 128 Gbps links. With Gen 6 ASIC technology providing up to 566 million frames switched per second, the Brocade G620 Switch shatters application performance barriers with up to 100 million IOPS to meet the demands of flash-based storage workloads. At the same time, port-to-port latency is minimized to 900 nanoseconds through the use of cut-through switching at 32 Gbps. With 48 SFP+ ports and 4 Q-Flex ports, each providing four 32 Gbps connections, the Brocade G620 can scale up to 64 device ports for an aggregate throughput of 2 Tbps. Moreover, each Q-Flex port is capable of 128 Gbps parallel Fibre Channel for device or ISL connectivity, enabling administrators to consolidate and simplify cabling infrastructure.

Administrators can achieve optimal bandwidth utilization, high availability, and load balancing by combining up to eight ISLs in a 256 Gbps framed-based trunk. This can be achieved through eight individual 32 Gbps SFP+ ports or two 4×32 Gbps QSFP ports. Moreover, 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. This augments Brocade ISL Trunking to provide more effective load balancing in certain configurations.

Simplify Scalability and Management Complexity

The Brocade G620 features up to 64 Fibre Channel ports in an efficiently designed 1U form factor, delivering industry-leading port density and space utilization for simplified scalability and data center consolidation. With this high-density design, organizations can pack more into a single data center with a smaller footprint, reducing costs and management complexity.

Designed for maximum flexibility and value, this enterprise-class switch offers “pay-as-you-grow” scalability with Ports on Demand (PoD) capability. Organizations can quickly, easily, and cost-effectively scale from 24 to 64 ports with a combination of 12-port SFP+ PoD and 16-port Q-Flex PoD. Each of the 48 SFP+ ports supports 4, 8, 10, 16, and 32 Gbps Fibre Channel speeds, while each of the 4 Q-Flex ports is capable of supporting 4×32 Gbps, or 128 Gbps, Fibre Channel speeds. In addition, Q-Flex ports are designed to support QSFP optics to deliver 4 to 1 cable consolidation (combining four cables into one cable per port).

Brocade G620 ports are available for device port or ISL port connectivity. As such, Q-Flex ports can be used as ISLs to provide simple build-out of fabrics, with more switching bandwidth. In addition, flexible, high-speed 32 Gbps and 16 Gbps optics allow organizations to deploy bandwidth on demand to meet growing data center needs. With its flexible PoD capability, the Brocade G620 provides excellent overall value and the agility needed to deliver rapid deployments to meet user demands and support higher growth.

Along with providing best-in-class scalability, the Brocade G620 simplifies end-to-end network management by automating monitoring and diagnostics through Brocade Fabric Vision technology. The switch is easy to deploy with the Brocade EZSwitchSetup wizard and provides validation prior to deployment with the Brocade ClearLink® Diagnostic Ports (D_Ports) feature. For maximum flexibility, the switch also features dual airflow direction options to support the latest hot aisle/cold aisle configurations.

Gain Control and Insight to Quickly Identify Problems and Meet Critical SLAs

The Brocade G620, with Gen 6 Fibre Channel technology and integrated network sensors, helps organizations achieve greater control and insight to quickly identify root cause at the storage tier, reducing time to resolution so critical Service Level Agreements (SLAs) can be met. The IO Insight capability nonintrusively gathers IO statistics, which can be used within an intuitive, policy-based monitoring and alerting suite to configure thresholds and alarms. In-band device latency and IOPS monitoring detects degraded storage performance, allowing administrators to proactively optimize performance and availability to ensure maximum performance. Additional features include:

• Provides proactive, non-intrusive, real-time monitoring and alerting with visibility into storage IO health and performance
• Monitors individual host or storage devices to gain deeper insight into the performance of the network to maintain SLA compliance
• Obtains IO latency and IOPS metrics for a storage device in order to diagnose IO operational issues

Forward Error Correction (FEC) capabilities further increase resiliency by automatically detecting and recovering network transmission errors. To ensure predictable performance prior to deployment, organizations can validate infrastructure with ClearLink Diagnostics and Flow Generator features, and baseline storage performance using IO Insight.

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 SLAs. Fabric Vision technology includes:

• IO Insight: Proactively and nonintrusively monitors storage device IO performance and behavior through integrated network sensors at the storage tier, providing deep insight into problems and ensuring service levels.
• Monitoring and Alerting Policy Suite (MAPS): Leverages prebuilt, rule-/ policy-based templates within MAPS to simplify 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. In addition, administrators can include IO Insight metrics in MAPS policies to be notified of performance degradation.
• Fabric Performance Impact (FPI) Monitoring: Leverages predefined MAPS policies to automatically detect and alert administrators to different latency severity levels, and to identify slow drain devices that could impact network performance. This feature identifies various latency severity levels, pinpointing exactly which devices are causing or are impacted by a bottlenecked port, and quarantines slow drain devices automatically to prevent buffer credit starvation.
• 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 to seamlessly deploy a configuration across the fabric. In addition, they can ensure 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 Fibre Channel optics and cables, simplifying deployment and support of high-performance fabrics. ClearLink Diagnostic Port (D_Port) is an advanced capability of 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, automatically learns, and non-disruptively monitors flow performance. Administrators can monitor all flows from a specific host to multiple targets or LUNs, from multiple hosts to a specific target/LUN, or across a specific ISL. Additionally, they can perform LUNlevel monitoring of specific frame types to identify resource contention or congestion that is impacting application performance. With IO Insight capability, administrators can monitor first IO response time, IO completion time, number of pending IOs, and IOPS metrics for a flow from a specific host to a target or LUN.
  • Flow Learning: Enables administrators to non-disruptively discover all flows that go to or come from a specific host port or a storage port, or traverse ISLs/IFLs or FCIP tunnels to monitor fabric-wide application performance. In addition, administrators can discover top and bottom bandwidth-consuming devices and manage capacity planning.
  • Flow Generator: Provides a built-in traffic generator for pretesting and validating the data center infrastructure for robustness—including route verification and integrity of optics, cables, ports, back-end connections, and ISLs—before deploying applications.
  • Flow Mirroring: Provides the ability to non-disruptively create copies of specific application and data flows or frame types that can be captured for in-depth analysis.
• Forward Error Correction (FEC): Enables recovery from bit errors in device connections and 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 6 Fibre Channel management and helps organizations 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. Dashboards and reports also 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 G620 provides a critical building block for today’s highly virtualized and cloud environments. It both simplifies server virtualization and meets the high-throughput demands of Solid State Disks (SSDs). The Brocade G620 also supports multitenancy in cloud environments through Virtual Fabrics, Quality of Service (QoS), and fabric-based zoning features. In addition, it provides efficient link utilization with up to 64 Gbps of in-flight data compression over ISLs. Organizations can have up to four ports at 16 Gbps of in-flight data compression per Brocade G620 Switch. Furthermore, internal fault-tolerant and enterprise-class RAS features help minimize downtime to support mission-critical cloud environments.

Brocade Access Gateway Mode

The Brocade G620 can be deployed as a full-fabric switch or as a Brocade Access Gateway, which simplifies fabric topologies and heterogeneous fabric connectivity (the default mode setting is a switch). Brocade Access Gateway mode utilizes N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) switch standards to present physical and virtual servers directly to the core of SAN fabrics. This makes it transparent to the SAN fabric, greatly reducing management of the network edge. The Brocade G620 in Brocade Access Gateway mode can connect servers to NPIV-enabled Brocade B-Series, or other SAN fabrics.

Organizations can easily enable Brocade Access Gateway mode via Brocade Network Advisor or a CLI. Key benefits of Brocade Access Gateway mode include:

• Improved scalability for large or rapidly growing server and virtual server environments
• Reduced management of the network edge, since Brocade Access Gateway does not have a domain identity and appears transparent to the core fabric
• Support for heterogeneous SAN configurations without reduced functionality for server connectivity

Brocade Global Services

Brocade Global Services has the expertise to help organizations build scalable, efficient cloud infrastructures. Leveraging 20 years of expertise in storage, networking, and virtualization, Brocade Global Services delivers worldclass professional services, technical support, and education services, 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.

Specifications:

	G620 Switch Specifications
System Architecture
Fibre Channel ports	Switch mode (default): Minimum of 24 ports and maximum of 64 ports configuration. Port numbers above minimum are enabled through 12-port SFP+ increments via Ports on Demand (PoD) licenses and through one 4-port QSFP PoD, providing 16-port increments through a Q-Flex license; E_Ports, F_Ports, D_Ports, EX_Ports. Brocade Access Gateway default port mapping: 40 SFP+ F_Ports, 8 SFP+ N_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: 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; 28.05 Gbps, full duplex; 112.2 Gbps, full duplex; auto-sensing of 4, 8, 16, 32 Gbps port speeds and capable of supporting 128 Gbps speeds; 10 Gbps optionally programmable to fixed port speed
ISL trunking	Frame-based trunking with up to eight 32 Gbps SFP+ ports per ISL trunk or up to two 128 Gbps QSFP ports per ISL trunk. Exchange-based load balancing across ISLs with DPS included in Brocade Fabric OS.
Aggregate bandwidth	2 Tbps
Maximum fabric latency	Latency for locally switched ports is 900 ns; compression is 1 μs per node
Maximum frame size	2112 byte payload
Frame buffers	15,360 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, AE_Port; optional port-type control Brocade Access Gateway mode: F_Port and NPIV-enabled N_Port
Data traffic types	Fabric switches supporting unicast
Media types	128 Gbps: Brocade G620 requires Brocade hot-pluggable QSFP, MPO connector; 128 Gbps SWL 32 Gbps: Brocade G620 requires Brocade hot-pluggable SFP+, LC connector; 32 Gbps SWL 16 Gbps: Brocade G620 requires Brocade hot-pluggable SFP+, LC connector; 16 Gbps SWL 10 Gbps: Brocade G620 requires Brocade hot-pluggable SFP+, LC connector; 10 Gbps SWL 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; Brocade Adaptive Networking (Ingress Rate Limiting, Traffic Isolation, QoS); Fabric Performance Impact (FPI) monitoring; Slow Drain Device Quarantine (SDDQ); Brocade Advanced Zoning (default zoning, port/WWN zoning, broadcast zoning, peer zoning, target-driven zoning); Dynamic Fabric Provisioning (DFP); Dynamic Path Selection (DPS); Brocade Extended Fabrics; Enhanced BB Credit Recovery; FDMI; Frame Redirection; Frame-based Trunking; FSPF; Integrated Routing; IPoFC; Brocade ISL Trunking; Management Server; NPIV; Time Server; Registered State Change Notification (RSCN); Reliable Commit Service (RCS); Simple Name Server (SNS); Virtual Fabrics (Logical Switch, Logical Fabric); Read Diagnostics Parameter (RDP)
Extension	Fibre Channel, in-flight compression (Brocade LZO); integrated optional 10 Gbps Fibre Channel for DWDM MAN connectivity
Management
Supported management software	HTTP, SNMP v1/v3 (FE MIB, FC Management MIB), SSH; Auditing, Syslog; NTP v3; Brocade Advanced Web Tools; Brocade Network Advisor SAN Enterprise or Brocade Network Advisor SAN Professional/Professional Plus; EZSwitch; Command Line Interface (CLI); SMI-S compliant; REST API; Administrative Domains; trial licenses for add-on capabilities
Security	DH-CHAP (between switches and end devices), FCAP switch authentication; HTTPS, IPsec, IP filtering, LDAP with IPv6, OpenLDAP, Port Binding, RADIUS, TACACS+, user-defined Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), Secure Copy (SCP), Secure RPC, Secure Syslog, 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; built-in flow generator; POST and embedded online/offline diagnostics, including environmental monitoring, FCping and Pathinfo (FC traceroute), frame viewer, non-disruptive daemon restart, optics health monitoring, power monitoring, RAStrace logging, and Rolling Reboot Detection (RRD)
Mechanical
Enclosure	Front-to-back airflow; non-port-side exhaust; power from back, 1U Back-to-front airflow; non-port-side intake; power from back, 1U
Size	Width: 440 mm (17.32 in.) Height: 43.9 mm (1.73 in.) Depth: 355.6 mm (14 in.)
System weight	7.73 kg (17 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	64 ports at 716 BTU/hr
Power
Power supply	Dual, hot-swappable redundant power supplies with integrated system cooling fans
AC input	90 V to 264 V ~3.5 A
AC Input line frequency	47 Hz to 63 Hz
AC Power consumption	204 W with all 64 ports populated with 48×32 Gbps SFP+ SWL optics and 4× (4×32 Gbps) QSFP SWL optics 85 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 6 Fibre Channel Brocade G620 Switch. This high-performance, highly reliable Fibre Channel switch addresses a wide range of business requirements, for small shared storage environments to the most demanding enterprise data centers.

What is the Brocade G620 Switch?

The Brocade G620 Switch with Gen 6 Fibre Channel, Brocade Fabric Vision™ technology, and IO Insight delivers unmatched 32/128 Gbps performance, industry-leading port density, and built-in instrumentation. These next-generation Fibre Channel-based technologies and capabilities enable the Brocade G620 to accelerate data access, adapt to evolving requirements, and drive alwayson business operations for hyper-scale virtualization, larger cloud infrastructures, and growing flash-based storage environments.

The Brocade G620 Switch is a 64-port, high-density building block for increased scalability to support growth, demanding workloads, and data center consolidation in small to large-scale enterprise infrastructures. This high-density design enables organizations to pack more into a single data center with a smaller footprint, reducing costs and management complexity.

To enable maximum flexibility and scalability, the Brocade G620 is a high-performance, enterprise-class switch configurable from 24 to 64 ports with 48 SFP+ and 4 Q-Flex ports. Organizations can quickly, easily, and cost-effectively scale from 24 to 64 ports with a combination of 12-port SFP+ PoD and 16-port Q-Flex PoD. Each of the 48 SFP+ ports supports 4, 8, 10, 16, and 32 Gbps Fibre Channel speeds, while each of the 4 Q-Flex ports is capable of supporting 4×32 Gbps, or 128 Gbps, speeds. Each SFP+ and Q-Flex port is available for device port or ISL port connectivity. In addition, Q-Flex ports are designed to support QSFP optics to deliver 4 to 1 cable consolidation, enabling administrators to consolidate and simplify cabling infrastructure.

In addition to providing best-in-class scalability, the Brocade G620 simplifies end-to-end management of large-scale environments by automating monitoring and diagnostics through Fabric Vision technology. The built-in IO Insight capability non-disruptively gathers IO statistics, including device latency and IOPS metrics, to monitor IO workloads and obtain insights into storage performance. The switch is also easy to deploy with the Brocade EZSwitchSetup wizard and ClearLink® Diagnostic Ports (D_Ports) feature, which simplifies setup. For maximum flexibility, the switch features dual airflow direction options to support the latest hot aisle/cold aisle configurations.

What distinguishes the Brocade G620 Switch from other Brocade switches?

Gen 6 Fibre Channel is the purpose-built network infrastructure for mission-critical storage, delivering breakthrough performance, increased scalability, and operational stability. The Brocade G620 Switch with Gen 6 Fibre Channel, Brocade Fabric Vision technology, and IO Insight provides unmatched 32/128 Gbps performance, industry-leading port density, and built-in instrumentation. Leveraging these next-generation network technologies, the Brocade G620 accelerates data access, adapts to evolving requirements, and drives always-on business operations for hyper-scale virtualization, larger cloud infrastructures, and growing flash-based storage environments.

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

	Brocade G620 with Gen 6 Fibre Channel	Brocade 6510 with Gen 5 Fibre Channel
Port Configurations	24, 36, 48, 64 ports or 24, 40, 52, 64 ports or 24, 36, 52, 64 ports	24, 36, 48 ports
QSFP Ports	4	0
Supported Port Speeds	4, 8, 10, 16, 32, 128 Gbps	2, 4, 8, 10, 16 Gbps
Total Bandwidth	2 Tbps	768 Gbps
ISL Trunking Bandwidth	256 Gbps	128 Gbps
Power Supply	Dual, hot-swappable	Dual, hot-swappable
Airflow	Front-to-back and back-to-front options	Front-to-back and back-to-front options
Energy Efficiency	0.1 watts/Gbps	0.14 watts/Gbps
Advanced IO Metrics	Yes	No
Brocade ClearLink Diagnostic Ports (D_Ports	Yes	Yes
10 Gbps Native Fibre Channel	Yes	Yes
Forward Error Correction (FEC)	Yes/Standard	Yes
ASIC-Enabled Buffer Credit Loss Detection and Automatic Recovery at Virtual Channel Level	Yes	Yes
Concurrent Support for Top Talkers and Fibre Channel Routing	Yes	Yes
E-Port Top Talkers	Yes	Yes

Benefits of Gen 6 Fibre Channel Technology

Feature	Gen 6	Gen 5	Benefits
More Buffers per ASIC	15,360	8,192	Congestion avoidance, better performance
Monitoring/Diagnostic Enhancements	Yes with advanced IO metrics	Yes	Avoid fabric problems
Forward Error Correction	Yes/Standard	Yes	Automatic recovery of transmission errors enhances the reliability of transmission, resulting in higher availability and performance
10 Gbps Native Fibre Channel	Yes	Yes	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	Yes	Ensures application availability and performance by automatically recovering lost buffer credits without requiring any upfront configuration or user intervention
Auto Link Tuning for Back-end Ports	Yes	Yes	Optimizes the link automatically
E_Port Top Talkers and Concurrency with Fibre Channel Routing	Yes	Yes	Monitors top bandwidth-consuming flows in real time on each individual ISL and EX_Ports

What Brocade Global Services offerings are available for the Brocade G620 Switch?

Brocade offers assessment, design, implementation, and Brocade Resident Consultant services as well as Brocade Technical Support for the Brocade G620 Switch.

Features

What are QSFP ports and why did Brocade decide to use them on the Brocade G620 Switch?

To reduce investment costs, energy consumption, and cabling requirements, the Brocade G620 Switch uses a space-efficient, four-channel Quad Small Form-Factor Pluggable (QSFP) optic that enables high-density port configurations as well as improved serviceability and ease of use. These QSFPs retain all of the performance and functionality of the standard SFP+ while supporting individual, per-port LED indicators for easy troubleshooting and diagnostics.

QSFP modules increase port density three to four times more than SFP+ modules and reduce the number of cables per switch from 64 to 16, significantly reducing cable management challenges. The QSFP form factor has been widely deployed across the networking industry for Ethernet and Fibre Channel (4×16 Gbps Brocade UltraScale Inter-Chassis Links) connectivity, making cabling options readily available.

Can I order and use a Q-Flex port PoD without purchasing an SFP+ port PoD?

Yes. Users can purchase and use a Q-Flex port PoD with the base Brocade G620 configuration.

Once I purchase a Q-Flex port PoD, can I configure additional SFP+ port PoDs?

Yes. Users can mix and add a Q-Flex port PoD and SFP+ port PoDs in any order.
For example, users can order any of the following combinations:

• Brocade base + one 12-port PoD license
• Brocade base + one Q-Flex port PoD license
• Brocade base + one 12-port PoD license + one Q-Flex port PoD license
• Brocade base + two 12-port PoD licenses
• Brocade base + two 12-port PoD licenses + one Q-Flex port PoD license

Do Q-Flex ports support breakout cables?

Not at this time. The QSFP ports do not support breakout cables with Brocade Fabric OS (FOS) 8.0. Please check the hardware manual and the Brocade FOS Administrative Guide for the latest support information.

What Fibre Channel speeds are supported on the Q-Flex ports?

The Q-Flex ports are capable of 4×32 Gbps or 4×16 Gbps Fibre Channel speed. Please check the hardware manual and the Brocade FOS Administrative Guide for the latest support information.

Can Q-Flex ports on the Brocade G620 be connected to QSFP ports on the Brocade FC16-64 Blade?

Not at this time. However, this capability will be supported in a future release.

Can Q-Flex ports on the Brocade G620 be connected to ICL ports on the Brocade DCX 8510 Backbone?

No. This capability is not supported.

What are the Fabric Vision feature differences between Gen 5 and Gen 6?

Please see table below for an overview of these feature differences.

Fabric Vision Features	8 Gbps Platforms	Gen 5 Platforms	Gen 6 Platforms
Latency Bottleneck Detection	Yes	Yes	Yes, with Fabric Performance Impact Monitoring
Forward Error Correction	No	Yes	Yes
VC-level BB_Credit Recovery	No	Yes	Yes
Brocade ClearLink Diagnostics (D_Port)	No	Yes	Yes
MAPS	Yes	Yes	Yes
Fabric Performance Impact Monitoring	Yes	Yes	Yes
Flow Learning	Yes, with enhanced 8 Gbps blades	Yes	Yes
Flow Monitoring	Yes, with some limitations	Yes	Yes
Flow Mirroring	No	Yes	Yes
Flow Generator	No	Yes	Yes
COMPASS	Yes	Yes	Yes
IO Insight	No	No	Yes
Buffer Credits	2,048	8,192	15,360

What are the advantages of Brocade Fabric Vision technology?

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 SLAs.

What is IO Insight?

IO Insight is built-in instrumentation within the Brocade G620 Switch that helps organizations achieve greater control and insight to quickly identify root cause at the storage tier, reducing time to resolution so critical SLAs can be met. The IO Insight capability non-intrusively gathers IO statistics, which can be used within an intuitive, policy-based monitoring and alerting suite to configure thresholds and alarms. In-band device latency and IOPS monitoring detects degraded storage performance, allowing administrators to proactively optimize performance and availability to ensure maximum performance. Additional features include:

• Provides proactive, non-intrusive, real-time monitoring and alerting with visibility into storage IO health and performance
• Monitors individual storage devices to gain deeper insights into the performance of the network to maintain SLA compliance
• Obtains IO latency and IOPS metrics for a storage device in order to diagnose IO operational issues

What is Brocade ClearLink Diagnostics?

The Brocade ClearLink Diagnostics tool leverages Brocade ClearLink Diagnostic Port (D_Port) mode to ensure optical and signal integrity for Fibre Channel optics and cables, simplifying deployment and support of high-performance 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 to verify the integrity of the fiber and optical transceivers in the fabric—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, ClearLink Diagnostics also provides the following:

• Dynamic ClearLink Diagnostics support between Gen 5 and Gen 6 Fibre Channel switches, QLogic, and Emulex fabric adapters when running at 16 Gbps or 32 Gbps, 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 of 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 an 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-of-policy conditions, to help administrators quickly pinpoint potential issues and easily identify trends and other behaviors occurring on a switch or fabric. In addition, administrators can include IO Insight metrics in MAPS policies in order to be notified of performance degradation.

What is Fabric Performance Impact (FPI) monitoring?

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, and quarantining slow drain devices automatically to prevent buffer credit starvation.

FPI monitoring 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.

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 Gen 6 switching ASIC compare to previous generations?

The Gen 6 ASIC is the industry’s most powerful and efficient switching technology. In addition to Gen 6 Fibre Channel 32 Gbps speed and 128 Gbps speed, it includes more bandwidth (2 Tbps), faster IO performance (566 million frames switched per second), more functionality (including D_Port and Forward Error Correction [FEC]), and higher energy efficiency (just 0.1 watt/Gbps).

What power management features are included?

The Brocade G620 supports real-time power measurement, providing insight into power consumption in the fabric.

Brocade G620 Hardware

Can an existing 16 Gbps Brocade switch be upgraded to 32 Gbps functionality?

No. An existing 16 Gbps switch will not support 32 Gbps capabilities.

Are Brocade Small Form-Factor Pluggables (SFPs) and QSFPs required for the Gen 6 Fibre Channel switches?

Yes. The Brocade G620 requires Brocade-branded SFPs and QSFPs.

Why does the Brocade G620 Switch require Brocade SFP optics?

This provides quality control that in turn avoids application downtime. The greater the port speed—especially 32 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 32 Gbps?

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

Link Distance with Speed and Fiber Type

Transceiver Type	Form Factor	Speed	Multi-Mode Maximum Distance				Single Mode Maximum Distance
			OM1	OM2	OM3	OM4	9 μm
SWL	SFP+	32 Gbps			70 m	100 m	Not applicable
	SFP+	16 Gbps	15 m	35 m	100 m	125 m
	SFP+	10 Gbps	33 m	82 m	300 m	550 m
	SFP+	8 Gbps	21 m	50 m	150 m	190 m
LWL	SFP+	32 Gbps	Not applicable				1Not available with Brocade FOS 8.0
	SFP+	16 Gbps					10 km
	SFP+	10 Gbps					10 km
	SFP+	8 Gbps					10 km, 25 km
ELWL	SFP+	32 Gbps	Not applicable				Not supported with Brocade FOS 8.0
	SFP+	16 Gbps					10 km, 25 km

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. Contact your OEM for specific details on licensing and pricing.

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

Brocade Network Advisor simplifies Gen 6 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.

Brocade Network Advisor supports all Brocade Gen 6 and Gen 5 Fibre Channel storage networking platforms as well as all IP storage switches. For a complete list of supported hardware, refer to the Installation and Migration Guide in the documentation section of the Brocade Network Advisor product page.

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 adapters are supported by Brocade Network Advisor?

The following Emulex and QLogic adapters are supported in Brocade Network Advisor 12.4+:

• Emulex LPe12002-M8 (8 Gbps 2-port HBA)
• Emulex LPe16002B (16 Gbps 2-port HBA)
• QLogic QLE2562-CK (8 Gbps 2-port FC HBA×4 PCIe)
• QLogic QLE2672-CK (PCI Express 3.0×4 / PCI Express 2.0×8 low-profile 16 Gbps Fibre Channel×2)

What other tools are available to simplify management of Brocade G620 Switches?

The Brocade G620 Switch supports 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.

Does the Brocade G620 support Access Gateway mode?

Yes, the Brocade G620 Switch supports Access Gateway mode.

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

No. Brocade Virtual Fabrics capabilities for the Brocade G620 are included as part of the base Brocade FOS software.

Documentation:

Download the Brocade G620 Switch Datasheet (PDF).