How to connect Brocade with Cisco SANs

[Rimvydas]

Hi,

We need to connect Brocade and Cisco SANs for our production environment. Are there any docs or guides how to do that, what settings to use to achieve such thing, what are the shortcommings of such thing, are there any needs for specific licensing, etc. hanks in advance

[dlt113]

A good place to start is with the latest Cisco's MDS interoperability guide:
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/mds9000/interoperability/matrix/intmatrx/Matrix5.html

If by chance you have the Brocade switch in fabric mode (vs access gateway), then Brocade will only support a Cisco MDS switch attached to Brocade switch if Cisco MDS is in NPV mode. 

[Bhavin Yadav]

There is a complete migration guide to help you with this: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/dcn/whitepapers/non-disruptive-san-migration-from-brocade-to-cisco.html

[Rimvydas]

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@dlt113 wrote:

A good place to start is with the latest Cisco's MDS interoperability guide:
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/mds9000/interoperability/matrix/intmatrx/Matrix5.html

If by chance you have the Brocade switch in fabric mode (vs access gateway), then Brocade will only support a Cisco MDS switch attached to Brocade switch if Cisco MDS is in NPV mode. 

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Am I correct by saying if I'll switch Cisco MDS switches to NPV mode I will loose all of my zoning I made on Cisco and will need to recreate everything on Brocade side? And from experience, what is better working way - connect Cisco to Brocade or Brocade to Cisco?:)

[dlt113]

You are correct.  Zoning will be provided by the switch in full fabric mode. If Cisco MDS is NPV or you make Brocade into access gateway then zoning is coming from the switch in full fabric mode.    As to which is better, it all depends on your organization's datacenter direction and growth.   If there is a dominate switch vendor (ie., more Cisco vs. Brocade with Cisco MDS being the core, then Brocade should be in access gateway and/or Cisco VSAN in the correct interop mode.  If your organization plans to make Brocade the dominate vendor (meaning core switch), then Cisco should be in NPV mode. )

[Rimvydas]

Guys, thank you for the links. Need to clarify one thing. When Cisco is talking about interoperability, I see that main focus is in migration (even link in second post). Does Cisco support such hybrid networks in production environments or mainly this all interoperability thing is used only for migrations scenarios?