HP 1606 HP StorageWorks Fabric OS 6.3.2b Release Notes (5697-0777, November 20 - Page 4

Bottleneck Detection and Related Fabric Diagnostics enhancements Fabric OS 6.3.1b added several optional diagnostics enhancements that are also included in version 6.3.2b. These enhancements are not fully documented in existing administrator guides or other materials, but will be captured in future updates and revisions. A brief summary of these enhancements follow: • Identification of Virtual Channel (VC) stuck or credit lost condition and generation of RASLOG message (C2-5021) when detected. Unlike previous reporting that indicated when all credits for a VC were missing, this new capability reports on individual credit loss. This is enabled by default and is non-configurable. • General improvements to Bottleneck Detection on both 4Gb and 8Gb platforms, including improved accuracy on reporting latency and reporting of latency values in Bottleneck Detection events. • Addition of Class 3 frame transmit timeout discard counter support for 4Gb platforms. Previously, 4Gb platforms supported only receive (Rx) timeout counters. See the Fabric Watch Administrator's Guide for details on use and configuration. • Addition of configurable "edge hold time" option to timeout frames for F_Ports sooner than for E_Ports. This option is disabled by default, but when enabled and properly configured, it reduces the likelihood of devices with high latencies causing frame drops in the core of the fabric and impacting other unrelated flows. Optionally licensed software Optionally licensed features in Fabric OS 6.3.2b are as follows: • Ports on Demand-Allows customers to instantly scale the fabric by provisioning additional ports through a license key upgrade (applies to select switch models). • Extended Fabrics-Provides greater than 10 km of switched fabric connectivity at full bandwidth over long distances. (Depending on the platform, the distance can be up to 3,000 km.) • ISL Trunking-Enables aggregation of multiple physical links into one logical link for enhanced network performance and fault tolerance. It also includes Access Gateway ISL Trunking on the products that support the Access Gateway deployment. • Advanced Performance Monitoring-Enables performance monitoring of networked storage resources. This license includes the Top Talkers feature. • High-Performance Extension over FCIP/FC (formerly known as FC-IP Services)-For the HP StorageWorks B-series Multiprotocol Router Blade and 400 MP Router, this license key also includes the FC FastWrite (FCFW) feature and IPsec capabilities. • Accelerator for FICON license-Enables unique FICON emulation support for IBM's Global Mirror (formerly XRC) application (including Hitachi Data Systems' HXRC and EMC's XRC), as well as tape pipelining for all FICON tape and virtual tape systems to significantly improve XRC and tape backup/recovery performance over virtually unlimited distance for the 400 MP Router and B-series Multiprotocol Router Blade. • Fabric Watch-Monitors mission-critical switch operations, and now includes new Port Fencing capabilities. • FICON Management Server (also known as the control unit port [CUP])-Enables host control of switches in mainframe environments. • 16 Link Inter-chassis links (ICL 16 link)-Provides dedicated high-bandwidth links between two DC SAN Backbone Director chassis, without consuming valuable front-end 8Gb ports. Each DC Backbone Director must have the ICL license installed in order to enable ICL connections (available on the DC Backbone Director only). • 8 Link Inter-chassis links (ICL 8 link)-This license activates all 8 links on ICL ports on a DC04 SAN Director chassis for connection of two DC04 directors, or half of the ICL bandwidth for each ICL 4