Cisco MDS 9000 Series Configuration Guide

Swapping Ports
If there are no duplicate port numbers on the switch, you can swap physical Fibre Channel ports, except the
port numbers, by following these steps:
Step 1 Issue the ficon swap portnumber old-port-number new-port-number command in EXEC mode.
The ficon swap portnumber command might fail if more than one interface on the MDS switch has the same
port number as the old-port-number or new-port-number specified in the command.
Note
The specified ports are operationally shut down.
Step 2 Physically swap the front panel port cables between the two ports.
Step 3 Issue the no shutdown command on each port to enable traffic flow.
If you specify the ficon swap portnumber old-port-number new-port-number after swap noshut command,
the ports are automatically initialized.
Note
Swapping Ports on the Switch with Duplicate Port Numbers
If there are duplicate port numbers on the switch, you can swap physical Fibre Channel ports, including the
port numbers, by following these steps:
Step 1 Issue the ficon swap interface old-interface new-interface command in EXEC mode.
The specified interfaces are operationally shut down.
Step 2 Physically swap the front panel port cables between the two ports.
Step 3 Issue the no shutdown command on each port to enable traffic flow.
If you specify the ficon swap interface old-interface new-interface after swap noshut command, the ports
are automatically initialized.
Note
FICON Tape Acceleration
The sequential nature of tape devices causes each I/O operation to the tape device over an FCIP link to incur
the latency of the FCIP link. Throughput drastically decreases as the round-trip time through the FCIP link
increases, leading to longer backup windows. Also, after each I/O operation, the tape device is idle until the
next I/O arrives. Starting and stopping of the tape head reduces the lifespan of the tape, except when I/O
operations are directed to a virtual tape.
Cisco MDS NX-OS software provides acceleration for the following FICON tape write operations:
• The link between mainframe and native tape drives (both IBM and Sun/STK)
• The back-end link between the VSM (Virtual Storage Management) and tape drive (Sun/STK)
Cisco MDS 9000 Series Fabric Configuration Guide, Release 8.x
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Configuring FICON
Swapping Ports

Cisco MDS 9000 Series Specifications

General

Category	Switch
Operating System	Cisco NX-OS
Ports	Varies by model
Protocols	Fibre Channel (FC), Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP), iSCSI
Redundancy	Redundant supervisors, power supplies, and fans
Management	Cisco Data Center Network Manager (DCNM), CLI, SNMP
Virtualization Support	VSANs (Virtual SANs)
Security Features	Fibre Channel Security Protocol (FC-SP)
Hot Swappable Components	power supplies, fans
Power Supply Options	AC and DC options available