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Replacing a pair of FibreBridge 6500N bridges with 7600N bridge

To take advantage of the additional FC2 port on the FibreBridge 7600N bridge and reduce rack utilization, you can nondisruptively replace 6500N bridges and consolidate up to four storage stacks behind a single pair of FibreBridge 7600N bridge.

Before you begin

You need the admin password and access to an FTP or SCP server.

About this task

You should use this procedure if:

  • You are replacing a pair of FibreBridge 6500N bridges with FibreBridge 7600N bridge.

    After the replacement, both bridges in the pair must be the same model.

  • You previously replaced a single FibreBridge 6500N bridge with a 7600N bridge and are now replacing the second bridge in the pair.

  • You have a pair of FibreBridge 7600N bridge with available SAS ports and you are consolidating SAS storage stacks that are currently connected using FibreBridge 6500N bridges.

This procedure is nondisruptive and takes approximately two hours to complete.

  1. Verifying storage connectivity
    Before replacing bridges, you should verify bridge and storage connectivity. Familiarizing yourself with the command output enables you to subsequently confirm connectivity after making configuration changes.
  2. Hot-swapping FibreBridge 6500N bridges to create a pair of FibreBridge 7600N bridge
    To hot-swap one or two FibreBridge 6500N bridges to create a configuration with a pair of FibreBridge 7600N bridge, you must replace the bridges one at a time and follow the correct cabling procedure. The new cabling is different from the original cabling.
  3. Cabling the bridge SAS ports when consolidating storage behind FibreBridge 7600N bridge
    When consolidating multiple SAS storage stacks behind a single pair of FibreBridge 7600N bridge with available SAS ports, you must move the top and bottom SAS cables to the new bridges.
  4. Updating zoning when adding FibreBridge 7600N bridge to a configuration
    The zoning must be changed when you are replacing FibreBridge 6500N bridges with FibreBridge 7600N bridge and using both FC ports on the FibreBridge 7600N bridge.
  5. Cabling the second bridge FC port when adding FibreBridge 7600N bridge to a configuration
    To provide multiple paths to the storage stacks, you can cable the second FC port on each FibreBridge 7600N bridge when you have added the FibreBridge 7600N bridge to your configuration.
  6. Disabling unused SAS ports on the FC-to-SAS bridges
    After making cabling changes to the bridge, you should disable any unused SAS ports on FC-to-SAS bridges to avoid health monitor alerts related to the unused ports.
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