Cascading SAN 2/16 switches

[Geoff Walton]

I have 3 existing 2/16 san switches and are trying to attach a further two. The switch ISL's login to the switch as E-ports but appear as incompatible. All 5 switches are running firmware v3.0.2f and have seperate domain ID's. Has anyone come across this before.

[David Devlin_1]

Geoff, apparently if you have more than four switches in your fabric you will need to purchase a license for any more switches i.e your 5th switch will need an additional license

Regards

David

[Geoff Walton]

This would only be the case is they were EL switches with the limited licensing. If that was the case the fourth switch would atttach ok. I am only able to cascade three switches.

[Uwe Zessin]

Geoff,
does the 'fabstatsshow' command work in that firmware version already?

[Stephen Kebbell]

Hi Geoff,

if your existing 2/16 switches are pre-merger Compaq, or around 2 years old, the CoreSwitchPID parameter could still be set to 0. After a while, they were then shipped with this parameter set as default to 1 (to accommodate 32-port and Core Switches in the fabric).
Run a configshow command on the old and new switches to check the fabric.ops.mode.pidFormat parameter. It must be the same on all switches in the fabric. (other parameters have to match, too, but this one I find to be the most common stumbling block). If you need to change it, have a look at this thread:
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=553369

Regards,
Stephen