4Fabric OS Administrator’s Guide
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The Management Server
1
Management Server — The Management Server provides a single point for managing the fabric.
The only service that is user-configurable is the Management Server.
Alias Server — The Alias Server keeps a group of nodes registered as one name to handle multicast
groups.
Broadcast Server — The Broadcast Server is optional, and when frames are transmitted to this
address they are broadcasted to all operational N_ and NL_Ports.
When registration and query frames are sent to a well-known address, a different protocol service,
Fibre Channel Common Transport (FC-CT), is used. This protocol provides a simple, consistent
format and behavior when a service provider is accessed for registration and query purposes.

The Management Server

The Brocade Fabric OS Management Server (MS) allows a SAN management application to retrieve
information and administer interconnected switches, servers, and storage devices. The
management server assists in the autodiscovery of switch-based fabrics and their associated
topologies.
A client of the management server can find basic information about the switches in the fabric and
use this information to construct topology relationships. The management server also allows you to
obtain certain switch attributes and, in some cases, modify them. For example, logical names
identifying switches can be registered with the management server.
The management server provides several advantages for managing a Fibre Channel fabric:
•It is accessed by an external Fibre Channel node at the well-known address FFFFFAh, so an
application can access information about the entire fabric management with minimal
knowledge of the existing configuration.
•It is replicated on every Brocade switch within a fabric.
•It provides an unzoned view of the overall fabric configuration. This fabric topology view
exposes the internal configuration of a fabric for management purposes; it contains
interconnect information about switches and devices connected to the fabric. Under normal
circumstances, a device (typically an FCP initiator) queries the Name Server for storage devices
within its member zones. Because this limited view is not always sufficient, the management
server provides the application with a list of the entire Name Server database.

Platform services

By default, all management services except platform services are enabled; the MS platform service
and topology discovery are disabled.
You can activate and deactivate the platform services throughout the fabric. Activating the platform
services attempts to activate the MS platform service for each switch in the fabric. The change
takes effect immediately and is committed to the configuration database of each affected switch.
MS activation is persistent across power cycles and reboots.
NOTE
The commands msplMgmtActivate and msplMgmtDeactivate are allowed only in AD0 and AD255.