Nexus 5K ISL with McData DS-4700M

[dylan.ebner]

Has anyone had any success getting older McData switches connecting to Nexus 5K via ISL? Our McData's are running an older firmware (9.02.00.8) and the switches do not appear to have any extra licensing. Open trunking and NPIV is not installed on the McData's so we are left with ISL.

What is strange is I have had success getting the two devices talking by setting the Nexus to VSAN1, the port type to E, Interop-1 and chaning to domain ID to something below 127 but nexus doesn't connect immediately. It takes a whole day (literally a whole day) before the zoning wil show up in the nexus.

I am worried if it takes that long for the fabic to show up and changes will take that long too, which is unacceptable.

Any tips, ideas, etc. will be greately appreciated.

Thanks

[jensmahnke]

Hi Dylan,

In what Mode is your McDATA running, Open System or McDATA mode?

Normally it should not take so long to get the zoning. What is the State of the both ISL ports?

Regards,
Jens

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[dylan.ebner]

Jens-

To give you an idea of how long it takes for the Cisco to move from initializing to up/ISL, I  brought the interfaces down and them up yesterday morning, probably before noon. The nexus shows the last change was at 23:14. So alomost 12 hours later.

The mcdata is running in open mode. As for the ports, I have tried setting both to E as well as auto. I have also tried locking the ports to 4Gb and leaving them on auto. The Nexus shows the ports as up/up ISL.

I have two Nexus and two mcdata. Both are showing the links up/ISL to their respective McData switches. However, one of the Nexus has the status of "timeout" for it's McData and the other has a staus of OK.

So, right not this it what the McData is showing:

Port Number	17
Port Name	VRC-E30-34-C5548B-fc1/31
Port Type	E Port
Operating Speed	4 Gb/sec
Fiber Channel Address	N/A
Port WWN	2011080088E36BCD
Attached Port WWN /Alias	Unknown- 2005002A6A0D9541
Block Configuration	Unblocked
Block Reason
Beaconing	Disabled
FAN Configuration	Enabled
Rx BB Credit	16
Operational State	Online
Reason	None

[Vu Phan]

Hello Dylan,

I would open a case with TAC to take a look at the issue

Thanks

[dylan.ebner]

I opened a case initially but they didn't seem too eager to help. The McData 4700 switch line is listed as compatable with the MDS series but not on the Nexus list. Probably because it is so old. Now that I have something working, maybe they will be more helpful.

Also, our McData contact owner, EMC, doesn't want anything to do with us either.

[jensmahnke]

Hi Dylan,

thanks for the extra information. I have not really a good answer for you, but I like to share my experiences, perhaps it is helpful.

Like you mentioned, Cisco has the 4700 not in the support list. And because the 4700 is End-of-Support, you can not really hope on help from Cisco, EMC or Brocade (have aquired McDATA). You can try to submit a CCR, like described in the Support Matrix, but expect not too much.

So, I have a connection between a MDS 9222i and a Sphereon 4700 in a lab environment. Interop 1/Open Fabric worked well with the firmware versions allowed in Support Matrix. We run 09.06.00 on the 4700 and 5.0(1a) on the MDS. Zoning changes takes less than a minute.
With newer NX-OS (5.2.(6a)) the interop 1 is no longer working. I was able to bring the ISL up and doing zoning from the McDATA worked. Zoning from MDS gives a failure (Wrong Zone Format), disabling/enabling the ISL ends with isolation. So, this might a similar issue that you see with the timeouts. So for my understanding, this is not a good condition to run your environment.

I have much better experiences with interop 4. This is still working with the new MDS release. So, might be an option for you, but you should test this on the Nexus. And you have to change the Fabric mode on your McDATA, what is disruptive.

Another option is to set your Nexus in NPV mode, the 4700 should support NPIV, I just don't remember the necessary code, perhaps you have to upgrade. This might be the best option, if it is not necessary to have a Storage on the Nexus.

Hope this helps,
Jens

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[dylan.ebner]

Hi Jens-

Thanks for the information. It sounds like I don't have a lot of good options here. I would like to avoid downgrading the 5Ks back that far.

We can't use NPV mode because we do not have the appropriate licensing on the McData to enable NPIV. It might be included in a newer firmware, but I don't have a test switch to try it out on.

How disruptive is changing the fabric mode on the McData? Does it stop all traffic or just affect ISL links?

[jensmahnke · Accepted solution]

Hello Dylan,

yes, it looks like you are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Changing the Fabric Mode is highly disruptive. You have to disable the McData switch. Normally not an option for a productive system.
Can you check the licensing on the 4700. We have a 4700 without any Feature keys installed, but NPIV is enabled. It is long ago, but I think 09.06.00 was the First Release with NPIV enabled by default. Can you upgrade? This is non-disruptive and very stable on the McDatas.
Cheers,
Jens

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[dylan.ebner]

Jens-

I checked both of our McData's and they both say "this feature not installed" on the NPIV page. I have the option to "enable" it, but when I click it I get re-directed to the Maitenance Feature Installation page. We are running 9.02. Can up upgrade firmware without disrupting the fabric? If so, I do have the 9.06 firmware.

[jensmahnke]

Dylan,

you can upgrade the McDATAs non-disruptive. 9.02 to 9.06 should not be a problem. If you have the Release notes, please check, I have not done an upgrade on McDATA for a while.

Jens

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[dylan.ebner]

Thanks for your help Jens. Upon further inspection I EMC has firmware 9.09 available, not 9.06. And from what I can find online you cannot go from 9.02 to 9.09 without disruption. Looks like I might just be out of luck here.

[jensmahnke]

Yes, too bad. Is your username a valid Email address? May I connect to you directly?

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[dylan.ebner]

Yes, my username is a valid address and you can contact me directly.

Thanks