Fabric OS enables a wide variety of Brocade Advanced Fabric Services that are designed to improve the investment protection, security, performance, scalability, and efficiency of Brocade SAN fabrics:
Brocade Advanced Performance Monitoring
Advanced Performance Monitoring (available on all 2 and 4 Gbit/sec Brocade switches and directors) can monitor performance characteristics on any attribute within the first 64 bytes of a Fibre Channel frame. Predefined graphs measure end-to-end performance; port, switch, and AL-PA bandwidth utilization; SCSI commands (read, write, and read/write); and protocol comparisons (SCSI versus IP). As a result, this tool provides the foundation for performance tuning, resource optimization, service level agreement compliance reporting, and bill-back applications.
Brocade Advanced Zoning Service
Advanced Zoning software limits access to data by segmenting a fabric into virtual private SANs. On 2 and 4 Gbit/sec Brocade switches and directors, software-enforced zoning prevents hosts from discovering unauthorized target devices. Hardware-enforced zoning prevents a host from accessing a device it is not authorized to access. In addition, Advanced Zoning enables hardware enforcement for devices identified by World Wide Name (WWN). Zone enforcement is adjusted automatically, even if a device moves to another port.
Brocade Extended Fabrics
Extended Fabrics software enables ISLs at distances up to 120 kilometers over dark fiber or Dense Wave Division Multiplexing (DWDM) connections at full bandwidth. As a result, it helps support disaster recovery and business continuity operations.
Brocade Fabric Watch
The intelligent fabric health monitor for SANs, Fabric Watch enables each switch to constantly watch its SAN fabric for potential faults-and automatically alert network managers to problems before they become costly failures. This approach enhances manageability by mitigating the need for multiple, vendor-specific monitoring tools.
Brocade ISL Trunking Service
Available for all Brocade 2 and 4 Gbit/sec Fibre Channel switches and directors, Brocade ISL Trunking enhances switch-to-switch performance, simplifies management, and improves the reliability of SANs. It combines up to eight ISLs into a single logical trunk that provides up to 32 Gbit/sec data transfers (with 4 Gbit/sec switches), enabling higher performance for demanding applications.
