HP StorageWorks 8/80 Brocade Access Gateway Administrator's Guide v6.2.0 (53-1 - Page 37

Port Grouping policy 2 Figure 7 shows that if you create port groups and when an N_Port goes offline, the F_Ports being routed through that port will fail over to any of the N_Ports that are part of that port group and are currently active. For example, if N_Port4 goes offline then F_Ports7 and 8 are routed through to N_Port 3 as long as N_Port 3 is online because both N_Ports3 and 4 belong to the same port group, PG2. If no active N_Ports are available, the F_Ports are disabled. The F_Ports belonging to a port group do not failover to N_Ports belonging to another port group. F_Port1 F_Port2 F_Port3 F_Port4 F_Port5 F_Port6 F_Port7 F_Port8 N_Port1 N_Port2 AG N_Port3 N_Port4 PG1 Fabric-1 Fabric-2 Storage Array-1 Storage Array-2 FIGURE 7 PG2 Port grouping behavior When a dual redundant fabric configuration is used, F_Ports connected to a switch in AG mode can access the same target devices from both of the fabrics. In this case, you must group the N_Ports connected to the redundant fabric into a single port group. It is recommended to have paths fail over to the redundant fabric when the primary fabric goes down. F_Port1 F_Port2 F_Port3 F_Port4 N_Port1 AG N_Port2 PG1 Fabric-1 Fabric-2 Storage Array-1 Storage Array-2 FIGURE 8 Port Group 1 (pg1) setup ATTENTION If N_Ports are connected to unrelated fabrics are grouped together, N_Port failover within a port group can cause the F_Ports to connect to a different fabric and the F_Ports may lose connectivity to the targets they were connected to before the failover, thus causing I/O disruption as shown in Figure 8. Access Gateway Administrator's Guide 19 53-1001189-01