Systems Architecture

Chassis

• Single chassis: Up to 512 (Brocade DCX) or 256 (Brocade DCX-4S) 8 Gbps universal (E, F, FL, M, EX) Fibre Channel ports using up to eight 16-, 32-, 48-, or 64-port Fibre Channel blades
• Dual-chassis: Up to 1024 (Brocade DCX) or 512 (Brocade DCX-4S) 8 Gbps universal Fibre Channel ports; ICL ports (four per chassis, copper pin) connect up to two Brocade DCX or Brocade DCX-4S chassis (same models or a mix)
• Three chassis: Up to 1536 (Brocade DCX) or 768 (Brocade DCX-4S) 8 Gbps universal Fibre Channel ports; ICL ports (four per chassis, copper pin) connect up to three Brocade DCX or Brocade DCX-4S chassis (same models or a mix)

Control Processor

• Redundant (active/standby) control processor modules

Scalability

• Full fabric architecture of 239 switches

Certified Maximum

• 6000 active nodes; 56 switches, 19 hops in Brocade FOS fabrics; 31 switches, three hops in Brocade M-EOS fabrics; larger fabrics certified as required

Special-purpose blades

• FCOE10-24 Blade provides CEE/FCoE connectivity for server I/O consolidation (24 10 GbE CEE ports; up to two blades)
• FS8-18 Encryption Blade provides plug-in encryption of data on disk or tape, supporting industry-standard AES-256 and DataFort-compatible encryption mode (16 8 Gbps Fibre Channel ports; up to four blades; requires DCFM management)
• FX8-24 Blade provides SAN extension over IP networks (12 8 Gbps Fibre Channel ports with license options providing up to 10 1 GbE ports and up to two 10 GbE ports per blade; up to four blades)
• FC10-6 Blade provides six 10 Gbps Fibre Channel ports (up to eight blades)
• FA4-18 Application Blade is integrated with EMC RecoverPoint to provide continuous data protection (16 4 Gbps Fibre Channel ports and two Gigabit Ethernet ports per blade; up to four blades)

Performance

• Fibre Channel: 1.063 Gbps line speed, full duplex; 2.125 Gbps line speed, full duplex; 4.25 Gbps line speed, full duplex; 8.50 Gbps line speed, full duplex; auto sensing of 1, 2, 4, and 8 Gbps port speeds; optionally programmable 1, 2, 4, and 8 Gbps ports; 10.5 Gbps line speed, full duplex
• CEE: 10.0 Gbps line speed, full duplex

ISL Trunking

• Frame-based trunking with up to eight 8 Gbps ports per ISL trunk; up to 64 Gbps per ISL trunk
• Exchange-based load balancing across ISLs with DPS included in Fabric OS

Chassis bandwidth

• Brocade DCX: 4.6 Tbps per chassis
  (512 ports × 8 Gbps data rate + 512 Gbps ICL bandwidth)
  
• Brocade DCX-4S: 2.3 Tbps per chassis
  (256 ports × 8 Gbps data rate + 256 Gbps ICL bandwidth)

Slot bandwidth

• 256 Gbps (data rate)

Local switching bandwidth

• 128 Gbps for FC8-16: 16 ports x 8 Gbps (data rate)
• 256 Gbps for FC8-32: 32 ports x 8 Gbps (data rate)
• 384 Gbps for FC8-48: 48 ports x 8 Gbps (data rate)
• 512 Gbps for FC8-64: 64 ports x 8 Gbps (data rate)

ICL bandwidth

• Brocade DCX: 512 Gbps; four ICLs provide the equivalent of 64 8 Gbps ports
• Brocade DCX-4S: 256 Gbps; four ICLs provide the equivalent of 32 8 Gbps ports
• Both models: ICL bandwidth is load-balanced using eight 8-port frame-based trunks and DPS

Switch latency

• Locally switched ports 700 ns; blade-to-blade latency is 2.1 µsec

Maximum frame size

• 2112-byte payload

Frame buffers

• 2048 per 16-port group on 16-, 32-, and 64-port blades and up to 2048 per 24-port group on 48-port blades, dynamically allocated

Classes of service

• Class 2, Class 3, Class F (inter-switch frames)

Fibre Channel Port types

• FL_Port, F_Port, M_Port (Mirror Port), E_Port, EX_Port (Fibre Channel Integrated Routing); self-discovery based on switch type (U_Port); optional port type control

Data traffic types

• Fabric switches supporting unicast, multicast (255 groups), and broadcast

Media types

• 4 Gbps: FC8-16, -32, and -48; FR4-18i; and FA4-18; blades require Brocade hot-pluggable, Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP), LC connector; 4 Gbps Short-Wavelength Laser (SWL); 4 Gbps Long-Wavelength Laser (LWL); 4 Gbps Extended Long-Wavelength Laser (ELWL
• 8 Gbps: FC8-16, -32, and -48; FX8-24; and FS8-18 blades require Brocade hot-pluggable SFP+, LC connector; 8 Gbps SWL; 8 Gbps LWL
• 8 Gbps: FC8-64 blades require Brocade hot-pluggable mSFP, mSFP LC connector; 8 Gbps SWL only
• 10 Gbps: FC10-6 blades utilize non-Brocade hot-pluggable, 10 Gbps Small Form-Factor Pluggable (XFP), LC connector; 10 Gbps SWL; 10 Gbps LWL
• Fibre Channel distance subject to fiber-optic cable and port speed
• CEE media type: Hot-pluggable, Brocade 10 GbE SFP+ supports any combination of Short-Reach (SR) and Long-Reach (LR) optical transceivers; Brocade copper Twinax cables of one, three, or five meters

USB

• 1 USB port per control processor for firmware download, support save, and configuration upload/download

Fabric services

• Advanced Performance Monitoring (including Top Talkers); Adaptive Networking (Ingress Rate Limiting, Traffic Isolation, QoS); BB credit recovery; Bottleneck Detection; Brocade Advanced Zoning (default zoning, port/WWN zoning, broadcast zoning); Dynamic Path Selection (DPS); Extended Fabrics; Fabric Watch; FDMI; Frame Redirection; FSPF; Integrated Routing; IPoFC; ISL Trunking; Management Server; N_Port Trunking; NPIV; NTP v3; Port Fencing; Registered State Change Notification (RSCN); Reliable Commit Service (RCS); Simple Name Server (SNS); Virtual Fabrics (Logical Switch, Logical Fabric)

Extension

• Supports DWDM, CWDM, and FC-SONET devices; FCIP, data compression, Fast Write, read/write Tape Pipelining, QoS, BB credit recovery

FICON

• FICON cascading (FOS: Brocade DCX, DCX-4S; and M-EOS: Brocade DCX only); support for lossless DLS with port-based and exchange-based routing; FICON CUP; Advanced Accelerator for FICON (FICON Global Mirror and XRC emulation and read/write Tape Pipelining). The FC8-64 blade does not support FICON

High Availability
Architecture

• Passive backplane; separate and redundant control processor and core switching blades (two of each); redundant WWN cards

Chassis power

• Two 2000 W AC power supply modules (100 to 240 V auto-sensing), 2N redundancy; Brocade DCX supports two additional power modules

Cooling

• Brocade DCX: Three blower assembly modules (two required for operation)
• Brocade DCX-4S: Two blower assembly modules (one required for operation)

Solution availability

• Designed to provide 99.999 percent uptime capabilities; hot-pluggable redundant power supplies, fans, WWN cards, processors, core switching, port blades, and optics; online diagnostics; non-disruptive firmware download and activation

Management

• HTTP, SNMP v1/v3 (FE MIB, FC Management MIB), Telnet; Auditing, Syslog; Brocade Advanced Web Tools, Brocade Fabric Watch; Brocade Data Center Fabric Manager (DCFM) Enterprise (Brocade DCX, DCX-4S) or DCFM Professional/Professional Plus (Brocade DCX-4S only), Brocade Fabric Manager (optional, FOS environments only), Brocade EFCM 9.x (optional), command line interface; SMI-S compliant; Administrative Domains; trial licenses for add-on capabilities

Security

• DH-CHAP (between switches and end devices), FIPS 140-2 L2-compliant, HTTPS, IPsec, IP filtering, LDAP, Port Binding, RADIUS, Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), Secure Copy (SCP), Secure RPC, SSH v2, SSL, Switch Binding, Trusted Switch

Management access

• 10/100/1000 Ethernet (RJ-45) per control processor, in-band over Fibre Channel; serial port (RJ-45) and one USB per control processor module; call-home integration enabled through Brocade DCFM, EFCM, and Fabric Manager

Diagnostics

• POST and embedded online/offline diagnostics, including RAStrace logging, environmental monitoring, non-disruptive daemon restart, FCping and Pathinfo (FC traceroute), port mirroring (SPAN port), and Rolling Reboot Detection (RRD)

Mechanical Specifications
Enclosure

• Rear panel-to-door airflow; Brocade DCX-4S ships with 1U exhaust shelf

Mounting

• Rack-mountable in a standard 19-inch EIA cabinet

Size

• Brocade DCX
  Width: 43.74 cm (17.22 in)
  Height: 61.24 cm (24.11 in, 14U)
  Depth (without door): 61.19 cm (24.09 in)
  Depth (with door): 73.20 cm (28.82 in)
• Brocade DCX-4S
  Width: 43.74 cm (17.22 in)
  Height: 35.00 cm (13.78 in, 8U) plus 4.37 cm exhaust shelf (1.72 in, 1U)
  Depth without door: 61.19 cm (24.09 in)
  Depth with door: 73.20 cm (28.82 in)

System weight

• Brocade DCX 103.50 kg (228.20 lb) for 512-port configuration fully populated 39.55 kg (82.20 lb) for chassis
  
• Brocade DCX-4S 68.04 kg (150.00 lb) for 256-port configuration fully populated 25.76 kg (56.80 lb) for chassis

Environment
Temperature

• Operating: 0° C to 40° C (32° F to 104° F)
• Non-operating: –25° C to 70° C (–13° F to 158° F)

Humidity

• Operating: 20% to 85% RH non-condensing at 40° C (104° F)
• Non-operating and storage (non-condensing): 10% to 93% at 70° C (158° F)

Altitude

• Up to 3000 meters (9842 feet)

Shock

• Operating: 20 g, 6 ms, half sine
• Non-operating: 33 g, 11 ms, half sine

Vibration

• Operating: 0.5 g p-p, 5 to 500 to 5 Hz
• Non-operating: 2.0 g p-p, 5 to 500 to 5 Hz

Heat dissipation

• Brocade DCX
  Min: 16-port configuration of 504 W, 1720 BTU/hr
  Max: 512-port configuration of 1528 W, 5216 BTU/hr
• Brocade DCX-4S
  Min: 16-port configuration of 383 W, 1306 BTU/hr
  Max: 256-port configuration of 862 W, 2943 BTU/hr

CO2 emissions

• Brocade DCX
  5.6 metric tonnes per year (with 512 ports at 0.42 kg/kWh)
  1.4 kg per Gbps per year
• Brocade DCX-4S
  3.2 metric tonnes per year (with 256 ports at 0.42 kg/kWh)
  1.5 kg per Gbps per year  

Power
Supported power range

• Voltage
  Range: 85 to 264 VAC Auto-volt
  Nominal: 100 to 240 VAC

• Power
  85 to 132 VAC: 1000 W
  180 to 264 VAC: 2000 W

In-rush current

• 20 Amps maximum, peak

Frequency

• 47 to 63 Hz