CORONA STACKING – NEW
FEATURES
Bipin Agarwal
August 2014
© 2013 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. CONFIDENTIAL—For Internal Use Only
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Legal Disclaimer
All or some of the products detailed in this presentation may still be under development and certain
specifications, including but not limited to, release dates, prices, and product features, may change. The
products may not function as intended and a production version of the products may never be released.
Even if a production version is released, it may be materially different from the pre-release version
discussed in this presentation.
Nothing in this presentation shall be deemed to create a warranty of any kind, either express or implied,
statutory or otherwise, including but not limited to, any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a
particular purpose, or non-infringement of third-party rights with respect to any products and services
referenced herein.
ADX, Brocade, Brocade Assurance, Brocade One, the B-wing symbol, DCX, Fabric OS, ICX, MLX, SAN Health,
VCS, and VDX are registered trademarks, and AnyIO, HyperEdge, MyBrocade, NET Health, OpenScript, and
The Effortless Network are trademarks of Brocade Communications Systems, Inc., in the United States
and/or in other countries. Other brands, products, or service names mentioned may be trademarks of their
respective owners.
*** NOTE: Backdoor and hidden commands are for INTERNAL USE ONLY***
*** Debug commands are for use under direction of Technical Support only***
© 2014 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. CONFIDENTIAL—For Internal Use Only
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Acronyms
Acronym
Description
IPC
Inter Process Communication
PP
Packet Processor
CPU
Central Processing Unit
DLB
Dynamic Load Balancing
© 2014 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. CONFIDENTIAL—For Internal Use Only
Acronym
Description
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Agenda
• Corona Stacking – Homogeneous Stacking
• ICX 7750 Stacking Links
• ICX 7750 Core Auto Trunking
• HG2 links
• Stacking Communication: Mailbox / IPC
• Secure-setup/ UR / Unit ID Change
• DLB
• Stacking Trunk Port Fast Failover
• IEEE-HG2 NEGOTIATION
© 2014 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. CONFIDENTIAL—For Internal Use Only
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Introduction
• ICX 7750 stacking is a Homogenous Stack
• Two Stacking Links per Unit
• Each link can be a trunk with max of 3 ports
• Each of these ports is a 40g port
• Possible Trunks:
• 1/2/1 to 1/2/3, 1/2/4 to 1/2/6
• 1/3/1 to 1/3/3, 1/3/4 to 1/3/6
© 2013 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. CONFIDENTIAL—For Internal Use Only
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Introduction – cont.
• Two port trunks also possible:
• 1/2/1 & 1/2/2
• 1/2/4 & 1/2/5
• 1/3/1 & 1/3/2
• 1/3/4 & 1/3/5
• Each Unit has only one PP
© 2013 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. CONFIDENTIAL—For Internal Use Only
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Core Auto Trunking
• HyperEdge supported peripheral auto trunks
• ICX 7750 supports core unit auto trunks
• Any stacking link between two ICX 7750 can
• Consist of multiple ports
• Secure-setup topology discovery can discover it
• Allows user to select one or more ports in trunk
© 2013 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. CONFIDENTIAL—For Internal Use Only
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HiGig2 Stacking Links
• All stacking communication based on Broadcom HiGig2 Header
• 16 byte Header
• Main fields:
• Mod Id to identify the destination unit
• Port Id to identify the port on destination
• Port Id to identify CPU port
• Frame size increases by only 4 bytes
© 2013 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. CONFIDENTIAL—For Internal Use Only
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Stacking Communication
• Mailbox Communication
• Peer to Peer
• Mod Id not needed
• Stacking IPC
• One unit to any other unit in the stack
• Topology Discovery uses Mailbox Communication
• Data Sync uses IPC
© 2013 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. CONFIDENTIAL—For Internal Use Only
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Multiple IPC Priorities
• IPC Infra now supports 3 IPC Queues
• Hi Priority
• Medium
• Low Priority
• Hi Priority used for Stacking Control messages
• Low Priority used for bulk messages
• Medium Priority for rest of messages
© 2013 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. CONFIDENTIAL—For Internal Use Only
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Stacking Communication
• Mailbox Communication
• Peer to Peer
• Mod Id not needed
• Stacking IPC
• One unit to any other unit in the stack
• Topology Discovery uses Mailbox Communication
• Data Sync uses IPC
© 2013 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. CONFIDENTIAL—For Internal Use Only
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Secure-setup
• Major part of UI unchanged
• Possible Core trunk connections are discovered
• Connections have to be consecutive
• Even if trunk connections are detected, user can optionally not include
them in topology
• Linear and Ring topologies supported
• Control on topology as before
• Supports 12 Units in Stack
© 2013 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. CONFIDENTIAL—For Internal Use Only
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Helping User in finding Incorrect Connections
• 12 Unit stacks with stack trunk cables may involve a lot of cables
• Finding incorrect connection may be nightmare
• Helps user in finding invalid connections in the topology
• Displays the MAC address of unit that may have bad connection
• Invalid Port on the unit is also displayed
© 2013 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. CONFIDENTIAL—For Internal Use Only
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Unit Replacement
• User can replace old unit by a new clean unit
• User just connects the cables
• Unit automatically joins the stack with no other configuration required
• No visible change for the User
• Supports core trunks and 12 units
© 2013 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. CONFIDENTIAL—For Internal Use Only
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Unit ID change
• UI remains same except for 12 unit support
• More protection has been added
• If ID change involves LAG, it is blocked
• ID change possible even if Unit has core Trunks
© 2013 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. CONFIDENTIAL—For Internal Use Only
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DLB – Dynamic Load Balancing
• New in ICX7750
• Provides a more balanced load distribution across members of stacking
trunk group
• Static hash-based mechanisms don't consider state of the port
• In DLB, the port is selected based on dynamic parameters
• New flow assigned to a port based on its state: loading etc
© 2013 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. CONFIDENTIAL—For Internal Use Only
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Backup Ports for Stacking Trunks
• New for ICX7750
• Recommended configuration for the user is to use stacking trunks
• Hardware reacts to trunk port failure
• Traffic switched to remaining ports
• Provides fast port hardware failover times
• Traffic loss is hardly noticeable
• Without this feature, traffic loss will be there until software reprograms
the trunk
© 2013 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. CONFIDENTIAL—For Internal Use Only
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ICX7450 IEEE – HiGH2 Link Handling
• Non-stacking link is referred to as IEEE
• Stacking link is referred to as HiGig2
• Port remains down if IEEE link is connected to HiGig2
• By Default, link comes as IEEE
• Link can be changed to HiGig2 if negotiation determines that it is
possible
© 2013 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. CONFIDENTIAL—For Internal Use Only
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THANK YOU
© 2013 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. CONFIDENTIAL—For Internal Use Only
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