Brocade Fabric OS Administrators Guide (Supporting Fabric OS v7.3.0) - Manual (Page 26)

Broadcast server -- The broadcast server is optional. When frames are transmitted to this address,
they are broadcast to all operational N_ and NL_Ports.
When registration and query frames are sent to a well-known address, a different protocol service,
Fibre Channel Common Transport (FC-CT), is used. This protocol provides a simple, consistent format
and behavior when a service provider is accessed for registration and query purposes.
Management server
The Brocade Fabric OS management server (MS) allows a SAN management application to retrieve
information and administer interconnected switches, servers, and storage devices. The management
server assists in the autodiscovery of switch-based fabrics and their associated topologies.
A client of the management server can find basic information about the switches in the fabric and use
this information to construct topology relationships. The management server also allows you to obtain
certain switch attributes and, in some cases, modify them. For example, logical names identifying
switches can be registered with the management server.
The management server provides several advantages for managing a Fibre Channel fabric:
• It is accessed by an external Fibre Channel node at the well-known address FFFFFAh , so an
application can access information about the entire fabric management with minimal knowledge of
the existing configuration.
• It is replicated on every Brocade switch within a fabric.
• It provides an unzoned view of the overall fabric configuration. This fabric topology view exposes
the internal configuration of a fabric for management purposes; it contains interconnect information
about switches and devices connected to the fabric. Under normal circumstances, a device
(typically an FCP initiator) queries the name server for storage devices within its member zones.
Because this limited view is not always sufficient, the management server provides the application
with a list of the entire name server database.
Platform services
By default, all management services except platform services are enabled; the MS platform service
and topology discovery are disabled.
You can activate and deactivate the platform services throughout the fabric. Activating the platform
services attempts to activate the MS platform service for each switch in the fabric. The change takes
effect immediately and is committed to the configuration database of each affected switch. MS
activation is persistent across power cycles and reboots.
NOTE
The commands msplMgmtActivate and msplMgmtDeactivate are allowed only in AD0 and AD255.
Platform services and Virtual Fabrics
Each logical switch has a separate platform database. All platform registrations done to a logical
switch are valid only in that particular logical switch’s Virtual Fabric.
Activating the platform services on a switch activates the platform services on all logical switches in a
Virtual Fabric. Similarly, deactivating the platform services deactivates the platform service on all
Management server
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