Brocade Communications Systems DCX 8510-4 manual High availability, Reliability

1 High availability

High availability

The following features contribute to the Brocade DCX 8510-4 high-availability design:

•Redundant, hot-swappable FRUs, including blades, power supplies, blowers, and WWN cards

•Enhanced data integrity on all data paths

•Fabric Shortest Path First (FSPF) rerouting around failed links

•Integration with Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) managers

•Automatic control processor failover

•Nondisruptive “hot” software code loads and activation

•Easy configuration, save, and restore

The high-availability software architecture of the Brocade DCX 8510-4 provides a common framework for all applications that reside on the system, allowing global and local states to be maintained through any component failure. High-availability elements consist of the High Availability Manager, the heartbeat, the fault/health framework, the replicated database, initialization, and software upgrade.

The High Availability Manager controls access to the standby control processor, facilitates software upgrades, prevents extraneous CP failover activity, closes and flushes streams, provides flow control and message buffering, and supports a centralized active and standby state.

Reliability

The Brocade DCX 8510-4 uses the following error detection and correction mechanisms to ensure reliability of data:

•Error Detection and Correction over main control processor memory.

•Error Detection and Correction mechanism, which checks for encoder errors and fault isolation (EDFI), such as cyclic redundancy checking (CRC), parity checking, checksum, and illegal address checking.

•Power-on self-test (POST).

•Dual control processors that enable hot, nondisruptive fast firmware upgrades.

•One serial port and two Ethernet ports (on each control processor) for management and for service. Offline control processor diagnostics and remote diagnostics simplify troubleshooting. The standby control processor monitors diagnostics to ensure the system is operational should a failover be necessary.

•Bus monitoring and control of blades and other field-replaceable units (FRUs).

8	Brocade DCX 8510-4 Backbone Hardware Reference Manual
	53-1002177-05