Brocade Fabric OS Administrators Guide (Supporting Fabric OS v7.3.0) - Manual (Page 109)

Frame order delivery
The order in which frames are delivered is maintained within a switch and determined by the routing
policy in effect. The frame delivery behaviors for each routing policy are:
• Port-based routing
All frames received on an incoming port destined for a destination domain are guaranteed to exit the
switch in the same order in which they were received.
• Exchange-based routing
All frames received on an incoming port for a given exchange are guaranteed to exit the switch in the
same order in which they were received. Because different paths are chosen for different exchanges,
this policy does not maintain the order of frames across exchanges.
• Device-based routing
All frames received on an incoming port for a given pair of devices are guaranteed to exit the switch in
the same order in which they were received.
If even one switch in the fabric delivers out-of-order exchanges, then exchanges are delivered to the
target out of order, regardless of the policy configured on other switches in the fabric.
NOTE
Some devices do not tolerate out-of-order exchanges; in such cases, use the port-based routing policy.
In a stable fabric, frames are always delivered in order, even when the traffic between switches is
shared among multiple paths. However, when topology changes occur in the fabric (for example, if a
link goes down), traffic is rerouted around the failure, and some frames could be delivered out of order.
Most destination devices tolerate out-of-order delivery, but some do not.
By default, out-of-order frame-based delivery is allowed to minimize the number of frames dropped.
Enabling in-order delivery (IOD) guarantees that frames are either delivered in order or dropped. You
should only force in-order frame delivery across topology changes if the fabric contains destination
devices that cannot tolerate occasional out-of-order frame delivery.
Forcing in-order frame delivery across topology changes
Use the following procedure to force in-order frame delivery across topology changes.
1. Connect to the switch and log in using an account with admin permissions.
2. Enter the iodSet command.
NOTE
The iodSet command can cause a delay in the establishment of a new path when a topology change
occurs; use it with care.
3. Confirm the in-order delivery has been set by entering the iodShow command.
Restoring out-of-order frame delivery across topology changes
Use the following procedure to restore out-of-order frame delivery across topology changes.
Frame order delivery
Fabric OS Administrators Guide 109
53-1003130-01