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Fabric OS Administrator’s Guide 81
53-1002745-02
Port Identifiers (PIDs) and PID binding overview
3
• Shared area limitations are removed on 48-port and 64-port blades.
• Any port on a 48-port or 64-port blade can support up to 256 NPIV devices (in fixed addressing
mode, only 128 NPIV devices are supported in non-VF mode and 64 NPIV devices in VF mode
on a 48-port blade).
• Any port on a 48-port blade can support loop devices.
• Any port on a 48-port or 64-port blade can support hard port zoning.
• Port index is not guaranteed to be equal to the port area ID.
256-area addressing mode
This configurable addressing mode is available only in a logical switch on the Brocade Backbone.
In this mode, only 256 ports are supported and each port receives a unique 8-bit area address.
This mode can be used in FICON environments, which have strict requirements for 8-bit area
FC addresses.
There are two types of area assignment modes in the 256-area addressing mode: zero-based and
port-based.
• Zero-based mode assigns areas as ports are added to the logical switch, beginning at area
0x00. When a port is assigned to a logical switch, the next free PID starting from 0x00 is
assigned. This mode allows FICON customers to make use of the upper ports of a 48-port or
64-port blade.
• Zero-based mode is supported on the default switch.
• Port-based mode is a bit more complex:
• Port-based mode is not supported on the default switch.
• 48-port cards are supported in port-based addressing mode (mode 2) on both DCX-4S and
8510-4 devices. However, the upper 16 ports of a 64-port card are not supported.The
Brocade DCX does not support port-based addressing (mode 2) on the FC8-48 blade, but
does support zero-based addressing (mode 1).
• The Brocade DCX-4S supports port-based addressing (mode 2) on the FC8-48 blade.
• The Brocade 8510-4 supports port-based addressing (mode 2) on the FC16-48 blade.
• The Brocade 8510-8 does not support port based addressing (mode 2) on the FC16-48
blade, but does support zero-based addressing (mode 1).
ATTENTION
The DCX and 8510-8 Backbones have safeguards that disable all 49 port cards if FMS is enabled.
See the FICON Administrator’s Guide for more details if needed.