1-4 Dell PowerVault 56F 16-Port Fibre Channel Switch User’s Guide
DELL CONFIDENTIAL - Preliminary 4/11/00
(Rev. 11/3/98) FILE LOCATION: S:\SYSTEMS\Labrador\Ug\89TMRc10.fm
!The switch is manufactured with 16 universal ports (U_Ports). U_ports provide the
greatest amount of flexibility when building a fabric because the ports automatically
and dynamically configure themselves to operate in E_Port, F_Port, or FL_Port mode
during port installation. The ports negotiate from the FL_Port to the higher-performing
F_Port if the attached device supports both modes.
"###The embedded port, which is a logical N_Port, is based on a microcontroller and is
responsible for:
Fibre Channel link control
Switch management
Routing table management
Address assignment and management functions
Management of Class F services and the related protocols as defined in the Fibre
Channel Standard
The embedded port also functions as a Simple Network Management Protocol
(SNMP) agent, a Fibre Channel name server, and an alias server to manage multicast
and broadcast functions.
Included with the switch is firmware that can be customized and tuned for each instal-
lation. Dell has provided a standard set of commands and interfaces described in
“PowerVault 56F Commands” of the Dell PowerVault 56F 16-Port Fibre Channel
Switch Installation and Troubleshooting Guide for switch monitoring, control, and
management.
$%& '()#The short-wave laser (SWL) fiber-optic GBIC module is based on short wavelength
850 nanometer (nm) lasers supporting 1.0625 gigabytes-per-second (Gbps) links
speeds.This GBIC module supports 50-micrometer and 62.5-micrometer multimode
fiber and is supported only in non-Open Fibre Connection (OFC) mode. 50/125-
micrometer cables up to 500 meters (m) in length and 62.5/125-micrometer cables up
to 175 m in length are supported.
NOTE: The SWL GBIC module uses a Class 1 CD laser, which complies with the 21
CFR, subpart (J) as of the date of manufacture.