Brocade Virtual ADX Licensing Guide (Supporting ADX v03.1.00) - Manual (Page 17)

Scalability
● Overview......................................................................................................................... 17
● Distributed Multi-Core System........................................................................................ 17
● Backward and forward compatibility................................................................................18
● License options and system requirements......................................................................18
Overview
Brocade Virtual ADX can scale performance through the number of cores and memory assigned to the
virtual machine (VM).
The license selected determines the maximum throughput, minimum memory requirements, maximum
system parameter values, maximum number of concurrent sessions, the IPv4 pbslb max-entries
values, and the IPv6 pbslb max-entries values.
The minimum system requirements for deploying Brocade Virtual ADX are also determined by the
license selected.
Distributed Multi-Core System
Brocade Virtual ADX has a distributed architecture which includes a logical management processor and
multiple application processors.
The Packet I/O process is a user space, poll mode driver that is responsible for packet I/O between
Brocade Virtual ADX processes and the underlying network elements (vNICs and physical NICs).
Brocade Virtual ADX has one Packet I/O process which always occupies one core. The utilization of
that core is always 100%, even if there are no packets to process.
The application process is responsible for Layer 4 through Layer 7 processing, server load balancing
(SLB) and application security features.
The management process is responsible for configuration and management of Brocade Virtual ADX.
This process is also responsible for running the control plane (Layer 2 and Layer 3 protocols, health
checks, SNMP, syncing control data to the application processes etc.)
To function correctly, Brocade Virtual ADX VM requires you to launch a minimum of one Packet I/O
process, one management process and one application process. A minimum of two cores is required,
since the Packet I/O and application processes need a core each.
Reserving a core for management functionality
The system prioritizes core allocation to application processing over management functionality. To
dedicate a core for management functionality, use the system reserve-management-cpu command.
This command can only be used if you have three or more cores.
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