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37-9
Cisco MDS 9000 Family Fabric Manager Configuration Guide
OL-17256-03, Cisco MDS NX-OS Release 4.x
Chapter 37 Advanced Features and Concepts
Switch Interoperability
If all vendors followed the standards in the same manner, then interconnecting different products would
become a trivial exercise. However, not all vendors follow the standards in the same way, thus resulting
in interoperability modes. This section briefly explains the basic concepts of these modes.
Each vendor has a regular mode and an equivalent interoperability mode, which specifically turns off
advanced or proprietary features and provides the product with a more amiable standards compliant
implementation.
This section includes the following topics:
• About Interop Mode, page 37-9
• Configuring Interop Mode 1, page 37-11
• Verifying Interoperating Status, page 37-12
About Interop Mode
Cisco NX-OS software supports the following four interop modes:
• Mode 1— Standards based interop mode that requires all other vendors in the fabric to be in interop
mode.
• Mode 2—Brocade native mode (Core PID 0).
• Mode 3—Brocade native mode (Core PID 1).
• Mode 4—McData native mode.
For information about configuring interop modes 2, 3, and 4, refer to the Cisco MDS 9000 Family
Switch-to-Switch Interoperability Configuration Guide.
Table 37-2 lists the changes in switch behavior when you enable interoperability mode. These changes
are specific to switches in the Cisco MDS 9000 Family while in interop mode.
Ta b l e 37-2 Changes in Switch Behavior When Interoperability Is Enabled
Switch Feature Changes if Interoperability Is Enabled
Domain IDs Some vendors cannot use the full range of 239 domains within a fabric.
Domain IDs are restricted to the range 97-127. This is to accommodate
McData’s nominal restriction to this same range. They can either be set up
statically (the Cisco MDS switch accept only one domain ID, if it does not get
that domain ID it isolates itself from the fabric) or preferred. (If it does not get
its requested domain ID, it accepts any assigned domain ID.)
Timers All Fibre Channel timers must be the same on all switches as these values are
exchanged by E ports when establishing an ISL. The timers are F_S_TOV,
D_S_TOV, E_D_TOV, and R_A_TOV.
F_S_TOV Verify that the Fabric Stability Time Out Value timers match exactly.
D_S_TOV Verify that the Distributed Services Time Out Value timers match exactly.
E_D_TOV Verify that the Error Detect Time Out Value timers match exactly.
R_A_TOV Verify that the Resource Allocation Time Out Value timers match exactly.
Trunking Trunking is not supported between two different vendor’s switches. This
feature may be disabled on a per port or per switch basis.
Default zone The default zone behavior of permit (all nodes can see all other nodes) or deny
(all nodes are isolated when not explicitly placed in a zone) may change.
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