Port Mirroring; Buffer Credit Recovery; Port Fencing - HP A7533A - Brocade 4Gb SAN Switch Base Release Note

Traffic Isolation Zones over FCR
This enhancement enables traffic isolation across EX ports and VEX ports. This benefits applications
like Tape Pipelining and Fast Write that traverse VE ports where customers want to control the exact
path and ports that are used.

Port Mirroring

Fabric OS 6.1.x adds support for Port Mirroring to 8-Gb ports. The Port Mirroring feature mirrors
traffic in both directions between a source and destination ID pair to a single mirror port. The user
may connect an FC analyzer to this mirror port to capture all the mirrored traffic and perform
troubleshooting or other analysis.

Buffer credit recovery

Fabric OS 6.1.x implements credit recovery protocol as described in FC-FS standards. This feature is
supported only on E_Ports and allows switches to automatically recover buffer credits that were
accidentally "lost" over time. Buffer credit recovery prevents link performance degradation that can
otherwise occur due to loss of credits over time.
FCIP performance enhancements
Fabric OS 6.1.x increases committed rate tunnel performance (utilization) when compressibility exceeds
2:1. Previous firmware releases capped FC data rates to two times the committed rate of the FCIP
tunnel. As a result, as compression ratio increases beyond 2:1, FC throughput remains constant at
two times the committed rate, and the link utilization decreases. Fabric OS 6.1.x now monitors
compressibility, adjusts to more compressible data, and works to fill the FCIP tunnel to the committed
rate.
In addition, the portcfg fciptunnel command has been modified to include a '–bstr' option.
When creating a tunnel, adding this option to the end of the command string enables the byte streaming
feature on that tunnel.
To enable the byte streaming option:
portcfg fciptunnel ge0 create 0 90000 –f –bstr
To disable the byte streaming option:
portcfg fciptunnel ge0 modify 0 –bstr 1
NOTE:
The Help command has also been updated to include the following line -bstr, which turns on TCP
byte streaming.

Port Fencing

Fabric OS 6.1.x includes new Port Fencing capabilities that can automatically isolate a port that is
behaving outside the bounds of a normal, expected operation. This enhances overall stability of the
fabric in the event of an isolated event that could otherwise cause a major disruption if left unattended.
The Port Fencing capability is included as part of the optionally licensed Fabric Watch feature.
HP StorageWorks Fabric OS 6.1.0h release notes 5