Brocade Fabric OS Administrators Guide (Supporting Fabric OS v7.3.0) - Manual (Page 484)

License requirements for ICLs
ICL ports can be used only with an ICL license. An ICL license must be installed on both platforms
forming the ICL connection.
All ICL ports must be disabled and then re-enabled for the license to take effect. After the addition or
removal of an ICL license, the license enforcement is performed on the ICL ports only when you issue
the portDisable and portEnable commands on the switch for the ports or the bladeDisable and
bladeEnable commands for the core blade.
For more information on how license enforcement occurs, refer to the Fabric OS Software Licensing
Guide.
ICLs for the Brocade DCX 8510 Backbone family
Each ICL connects the core blades of two Brocade DCX 8510 chassis and provides up to 64 Gbps of
throughput within a single cable.
You can have up to 32 QSFP ports in a Brocade DCX 8510-8 chassis or 16 QSFP ports in a Brocade
DCX 8510-4 chassis, with up to 2 Tbps ICL bandwidth and support for up to 100 meters on universal
optical cables.
The 100-meter ICL is supported beginning in Fabric OS 7.1.0, when using 100-meter-capable QSFPs
over OM4 cable only.
The Brocade DCX 8510-8 has four port groups on the CR16-8 core blade. The Brocade DCX 8510-4
has two port groups on the CR16-4 core blade. Each port group has four QSFP connectors, and each
QSFP connector maps to four user ports. Refer to the hardware reference manuals for details about
the port groups.
Following are ICL configuration guidelines for trunking bandwidth and High Availability:
• ICLs must be installed in groups of two. Each pair of ICLs must be in the same port group.
• The recommended minimum number of ICLs between two Brocade DCX 8510 chassis is four.
Additional ICLs should be added in increments of two--one on each core blade.
• For High Availability, you should have at least two ICLs from each core blade. Figure 70 shows two
Brocade DCX 8510-8 chassis connected with full redundancy using four ICL connections.
License requirements for ICLs
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