HP StorageWorks 2/16V Brocade Fabric Watch Administrator's Guide (53-1000243-0 - Page 19

Introduction to Fabric Health 1 Introduction to Fabric Health Fabric health refers to the capability of the fabric to support data being routed through it. A healthy fabric enables effective data transmission between networked devices. Although the concept of fabric health initially seems fairly simple, it can be a deep and complex topic due to the number of factors that are involved. One of the more obvious criteria for fabric health is the condition of the network hardware. A switch or port failure could easily prevent data packets from reaching their destination. Network traffic can also influence fabric health. If the number of packets routed through a port exceeds the port bandwidth, it causes network delays and packet losses. Even environmental factors can become issues, as network hardware can fail to function properly when stored in locations that do not meet the environmental conditions for the device. For example, switches can fail when stored in rooms that are too hot. Because of the varied and complex factors in determining fabric health, you need fabric monitoring software such as Fabric Watch to help you to quickly detect, identify, and resolve fabric health issues by continuously monitoring possible issues and reporting any potential concerns. Fabric Watch automatically provides detailed reports on detected issues and helps you correct failures. Fabric Watch provides customizable monitoring thresholds. You can configure Fabric Watch to provide notification before problems arise, such as reporting when network traffic through a port is approaching the bandwidth limit. This information enables you to perform preemptive network maintenance such as trunking or zoning and avoid potential network failures. Fabric Watch Components Fabric Watch uses a hierarchical organization to track the network device information it monitors. There is a class, area, and element associated with every monitored behavior. Classes are the highest level in the system, subdivided into one or more areas. Areas contain one or more elements. The following sections explain this hierarchy and its application within Fabric Watch. Classes Classes are high-level categories of elements. Classes are intentionally wide groupings of similar fabric devices or fabric data. Examples of classes include Port (which includes all physical ports on a switch), Security (which includes information related to unauthorized login attempts), and Environment (which contains information related to the internal temperature, supplied power and fan assemblies). In some cases, classes are divided into subclasses. This additional level in the hierarchy increases the flexibility of setting monitoring thresholds. You can use subclasses to add additional event monitoring to fabric objects that meet the requirements of a subclass. For example, ports connected to another switch can be monitored using both the Port class and E_Port subclass. You can configure general port monitoring using the Port class and monitoring specific to a type of port using the E_Port class. Ports connected to another switch can trigger events based on either of these configurations. Ports that are not connected to another switch are not affected by the additional monitoring configured into the E_Port class. Fabric Watch Administrator's Guide 1-3 Publication Number: 53-1000243-01