Brocade Fabric Watch Administrator's Guide (53-1000243-01, November 2006)

1-20 Fabric Watch Administrator’s Guide

Publication Number: 53-1000243-01

Port Persistence

Fabric Watch Alarm Behavior

Fabric Watch alarm behavior depends on the threshold states associated with the Above, Below and

Changed thresholds. Threshold states can be INFORMATIVE, IN_RANGE, and OUT_OF_RANGE.

Alarms are generated only for the following transitions:

• IN_RANGE to OUT_OF_RANGE

An alarm is generated

• OUT_OF_RANGE to IN_RANGE

An alarm is generated

No alarm is generated for INFORMATIVE to IN_RANGE (or IN_RANGE to INFORMATIVE)

See Appendix A, “Default Threshold Values” for more details about the threshold states for Above,

Below, and Changed.

Port Persistence

The data collected in port monitoring can vary a great deal over short time periods. Therefore, the port

can become a source of frequent event messages (the data can exceed the threshold range and return to a

value within the threshold range).

Fabric Watch uses port persistence for a port event that requires the transition of the port into a marginal

status. Fabric Watch does not record any event until the event persists for a length of time equal to the

port persistence time. If the port returns to normal boundaries before the port persistence time elapses,

Fabric Watch does not record any event.

The port persistence time is measured in seconds, and can be configured. Configuring the port

persistence time to zero disables this feature. The default value for port persistence is 18 seconds.

Notification Methods

There are five notification methods available through Fabric Watch, but not all notification methods can

be applied to all of the classes. Valid notification methods are represented through the valid alarm matrix.

Fabric Watch provides the following notification methods:

• “Switch Event (Error) Log Entry,” next

• “SNMP Trap” on page 1-21

• “RAPI Trap” on page 1-21

• “Port Log Lock” on page 1-21

• “E-mail Alert” on page 1-22

To enable event settings, you must set the associated attribute to a nonzero value between 1 and 31. The

exact value you specify determines which event notification method Fabric Watch uses if the event

setting criteria is met.

For details about valid notification methods in the alarm matrix, see “Assigning Notification Methods”

on page 1-22.