HP M-Series B-Series Interoperability

[Nicholas Sinish]

Does HP Services support Interoperability between HP M-Series (McDATA) and HP B-Series (Brocade) Fibre Channel Switches ?

Specifically we have a couple of HP 2/64 Directors with EOS 4.01 firmware and we want to temporarily connect 2 Compaq EL-8 Switches.
Is this supported and on what f/w level for the EL-8's. We have G80 Storage which requires EL-8 f/w v.2.6.0c.

[Mike Povall]

The June edition of the SAN Design Reference Guide states that intermixing of B-Series and M-Series switches in the same SAN consisting of multiple fabrics or in the same fabric is not supported at this time.

[Peter Mattei]

I am sorry, but currently hp does not support a mix of different vendors.
Anyway, even if it was supported I would not encourage anybody to mix brands!!
If you connect to different brands you need to put the switches/directors into "interoperability mode". By doing this you will loose all the nice proprietary features that are not FC standart like Brocades "port zoning" etc.

Out of the "HP SAN DESIGN REFERENCE GUIDE" chapter 3 on http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/storageworks/san/documentation.html :

Support is provided for SAN fabrics consisting exclusively of the Fibre Channel switches
listed in Table 9, StorageWorks B-Series Product Line Switches, exclusively of the switches
listed in Table 10, HP StorageWorks M-Series Product Line Switches, or exclusively of the
switches listed in Table 12, HP C-Series Product Line Switches. Intermixing of the switches in
Table 9, Table 10, or Table 12 in the same SAN consisting of multiple fabrics or in the same
fabric is not supported at this time.

Cheers
Peter