TE CHNI C AL SUPPORT BUL LETIN

Au gus t 2 7, 2 009

TSB 2009- 057- A

SEVERITY: Medium - Operational

PRO D U CT S A FF E CT E D:

Brocade Mi10k Director in a fabric ISLd to a Brocade DCX or 48000 Director, running Fabric OS
v6.x.x, that has 48-port blades installed.
CORRECTED IN RELEASE:

The fix for this issue has been included in M-EOSn v9.9.5, generally available on 8/20/09.
BULLETIN OVERVIEW
Ports may intermittently fail on the Mi10k Director after bringing devices online in a intermix fabric.
In addition, devices may be unable to login to remote devices, when ports 32 through 47 are used on
the 48-port blade in the DCX or 48000 Director.

PROBLEM STATEMENT
The Mi10k Director intermittently logs 144 and 519 events in the event log because ports may
intermittently fail on the Mi10k Director after bringing devices online in an intermix fabric. In
addition, devices may be unable to login to remote devices, when ports 32 through 47 are used on
the 48 port blade in the DCX or 48000 Director running Fabric OS v6.x.x. The 48-port blade when
installed in a DCX or 48000 Director uses shared area addressing on the upper 16 ports of the blade.
A 48-port blade utilizes standard formatting for the first 16 ports, 0 15, but ports 16 31 share the
same hex number for the port as ports 32 47. To distinguish the ports, an 80 is placed in the
Arbitrated Loop Physical Address (ALPA) field of ports 32 47 to indicate that they are different
addresses on higher order ports. The Mi10ks normal route tables do not use the ALPA field where
the 80 is placed, so when a frame from the 48-port blades upper ports is routed into the Mi10k,
software must route the frame. During very busy periods of data transfer, some of these frames may
be dropped, causing port errors on the Mi10k.

2009 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. TSB 2009-057-A

DCX addressing example for a 48-port blade in slot 1.

Index
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15

Slot Port Address

1
0
1a0000
1
1
1a0100
1
2
1a0200
1
3
1a0300
1
4
1a0400
1
5
1a0500
1
6
1a0600
1
7
1a0700
1
8
1a0800
1
9
1a0900
1
10
1a0a00
1
11
1a0b00
1
12
1a0c00
1
13
1a0d00
1
14
1a0e00
1
15
1a0f00

Index Slot Port

128
1
16
129
1
17
130
1
18
131
1
19
132
1
20
133
1
21
134
1
22
135
1
23
136
1
24
137
1
25
138
1
26
139
1
27
140
1
28
141
1
29
142
1
30
143
1
31

Address
1a8000
1a8100
1a8200
1a8300
1a8400
1a8500
1a8600
1a8700
1a8800
1a8900
1a8a00
1a8b00
1a8c00
1a8d00
1a8e00
1a8f00

Index Slot Port

256
1
32
257
1
33
258
1
34
259
1
35
260
1
36
261
1
37
262
1
38
263
1
39
264
1
40
265
1
41
266
1
42
267
1
43
268
1
44
269
1
45
270
1
46
271
1
47

Address
1a8880
1a8980
1a8a80
1a8b80
1a8c80
1a8d80
1a8e80
1a8f80
1a8080
1a8180
1a8280
1a8380
1a8480
1a8580
1a8680
1a8780

SYMPTOMS
I10K Event log:
EventLog 07-18-09 10:06:18 PM 144
Informational 1

Front Port forced by firmware to send OLS

EventLog 07-18-09 10:14:22 PM 144

Informational 1

Front Port forced by firmware to send OLS

EventLog 07-18-09 10:14:22 PM 144

Informational 1

Front Port forced by firmware to send OLS

EventLog 07-18-09 10:14:23 PM 519

Informational 1

Port Module ASIC reset

EventLog 07-18-09 10:14:23 PM 519

Informational 1

Port Module ASIC reset

RISK ASSESSMENT
When 48 port blades are installed in a Brocade 48000 or DCX Director running Fabric OS v6.x.x,
and the Director is ISLd to a Mi10k Director, there is a possibility that specific frames are dropped
when being routed through the Mi10k. This will only occur when devices are attached to port 32
47 on the 48-port blade. If the upper 16 ports are not used on the 48-port blade, this issue will not
occur.
2009 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

TSB 2009-057-A

WORKAROUND
Brocade recommends that customers do not use ports 32 47 on the 48-port blade in the Brocade
DCX or 48000 running Fabric OS v6.x.x, until M-EOSn v9.9.5 is installed on the attached Mi10k.

CORRECTIVE ACTION
Defects 261603 and 252133 have been fixed in M-EOSn v9.9.5 to address the possible dropped
frames that may occur on frames routed from a 48-port blade to a Mi10k.

2009 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. TSB 2009-057-A