FOS v9x (Open Systems)
Brocade CIS SANText: Brocade CIS SAN Telegram channel
FOS v9x (Open Systems)
• Supported products
• FOS v9x is supported for all Gen 6 (32Gb/s) and Gen 7 (64Gb/s) products
• All FOS v9x code versions are EULA-Aware
• Important: As mentioned in the previous sections, FOS version recommendations are not something the Brocade community takes lightly – please read the rest of this section carefully and in its entirety
• For all Gen 6 and most Gen 7 products, we are recommending FOS version v9.0.1e1, however, as usual, there are a couple of points of interest below
• Here is a listing of the of the most recent FOS v9x minor variants supported by OEM:
• FOS v9.1.1a – Release date 11/17/22
• As of 12/4/22, FOS v9.1x is the Latest Major Version of FOS
• OEM Support for FOS v9.1.1a includes:
• HV and IBM
• FOS v9.1.1_01 is supported by all OEMs except Fujitsu
• FOS v9.0.1e1 – Brocade Target Path - Release date 11/8/22
• As of 12/4/22, FOS v9.0x is the Established Major Version of FOS
• OEM Support for FOS v9.0.1e1 includes:
• All OEMs except Fujitsu
• Note: SANnav does not support installing TruFOS certificates and other XML-based licenses on switches running FOS v9.0.1e, they must be running FOS v9.0.1c, v9.0.1d, or v9.0.1e1 - as a workaround you could use the CLI
• SANnav v2.2x supports FOS v7.4.0 and later up to FOS v8.2.3x variants as well as FOS v9.1x
• All Gen 5 (16Gb/s) platforms do NOT and will never support FOS v9.0x
• Important: In multi-switch fabrics, all switches in the fabric must be running a minimum of FOS v8.1.0x before upgrading any system in the fabric to FOS v9.0x (note the one exception below)
• The above bullet is true regardless of whether or not any given switch is running in Native or Access Gateway mode
• FOS v9.0x is NOT compatible with any systems running FOS v7.4.2x UNLESS those systems are running in Access Gateway mode, or, are only communicated with via FCR (Fibre Channel Routing)
• In other words, to run FOS v9.0x on any switch/Director in a given fabric, all other switches/Directors in that fabric MUST be running a minimum of FOS v8.1.0x with the exception of Brocade 300s or modular/bladed switches which can be running FOS v7.4.2x provided they are running in Access Gateway mode
• Miscellaneous:
• FOS v9.1x and higher is required to support:
• The Gen 7 Brocade G730 2U switch (I recommend v9.1.1a for this product)
• Note: When connecting a G730 to X7s, G720s, or Version 2 of the G620 or G630, those platforms should be running FOS v9.0.1c or later
• X6-4 and X6-8 Directors w/updated CP blades (switch types 165.5 and 166.5 respectively)
• 64Gb/s Short Wave Double Density (SFP-DD) SFPs
• Gen 7 2km ICL QSFPs
• Note: To use Gen 7 2km QSFPs on X7 Directors, the FPGAs on the core routing blades must be non-disruptively upgraded – please see the FOS v9.1x Release Notes for full details
• To ISL Condor 5 Gen 6 switches products together at 4Gb/s speed via E-Ports (EX-Ports are not supported)
• Only the following three products can connected together at 4Gb/s speed when running FOS v9.1x: FC32-X7-48 port blades, Version 2 of the G620 (switch type 183), Version 2 of the G630 (switch type 184)
• FOS v9.0x and higher is required to support:
• Version 2 of the Gen 6 G620 1U switch (switch type 183)
• Note: Version 1 was switch type 162 and can run FOS v8.0x and higher
• Version 2 of the Gen 6 G630 2U switch (switch type 184)
• For V2 of the G630, ensure you are running at least FOS v9.0.1d
• Note: Version 1 was switch type 173 and can run FOS v8.2x and higher
• The entire listing of which FOS versions are compatible with which other FOS versions can be found in the Fabric OS Compatibility section of the FOS Release Notes
• Note: Before upgrading to FOS v9.0x on Brocade 7810s or Directors w/SX6 extension blades installed, if tunnels over to Brocade 7840s exist, the 7840s must be running a minimum of FOS v8.2.1x
• Note: FOS v9.1.0 became General Availability from Brocade on 12/15/21. Like all major FOS versions, FOS v9.1 has new features and capabilities you may want to take advantage of prior to it becoming my recommended and go-to FOS version
• As a preventative measure, if you purchase Gen 7 products and will be configuring them with long distance links, when using the portcfglongdistance command, utilize the most common modes of LD or LS and not LE. On Gen 7 platforms, if LE mode is configured on links with QoS and VC translation Initialization enabled, frame timeouts may result
Upgrading FOS v8.2x to FOS v9.0.1x – Things to Note
When upgrading to FOS v9.0x, as with every other major FOS version jump, the upgrade is accompanied by operational changes and feature enhancements.
FOS v9.0x has become prevalent for many reasons:
• Gen 7 hardware platforms require FOS 9x
• FOS v9.x has a number of features unavailable to FOS v8.2x and earlier FOS versions
• OEMs control which FOS versions they ship their products out with. OEMs have largely transitioned to shipping their Gen 6 products factory-loaded with FOS v9.0x
• Once FOS v9.2x is released, FOS v9.0x will become the Minimum Major Version of FOS relegating FOS v8.2x to Legacy Supported Release status
• Note: Gen 5 16Gb/s products cannot run FOS v9x
Regarding FOS 9x:
• Please read FOS v9x (Open Systems) in this document for a complete breakdown of FOS 9x requirements and compatibilities
• Please read TruFOS (Trusted FOS) Certificates for a full breakdown of TruFOS certificates introduced in FOS v9x
A full listing of FOS 9x features can be found in all manner of FOS 9 and Gen 7 literature, as well as on the Brocade Learning Portal. For example, FOS 9.0x introduced Global Quiet Time which can be highly convenient.
Important: The security features of FOS v9x are better and tighter – in many ways actually. Please read the following three notes which may be relevant to your environment:
Note 1: If you happen to have manually configured F_Port authentication between a switch in native mode and either an Access Gateway switch or HBAs, it is highly recommended you reconfigure your shared secrets prior to upgrading to FOS v9x. Please read section 12.3.12 of the FOS v9.0.1e1 Release Notes titled Security for full details.
Note 2: If you are utilizing LDAP in your FOS v8.2x environment, to avoid LDAP login failure issues upon upgrading to FOS v9.0.1e1, there are a few items you want to check. Please read section 12.3.12 of the FOS v9.0.1e1 Release Notes titled Security for full details. For those interested, there are two Brocade LDAP courses, namely: Fabric OS LDAP Remote Authentication (LDAP-220 – 47m) and SANnav LDAP Server Authentication and Authorization (SLDAP-220 37m)
Note 3: If you have manually configured DH-CHAP E-port authentication on your ISLs in FOS v8.2x, you must ensure the secret configured on each side of the ISL is not the same. Please read section 12.3.12 of the FOS v9.0.1e1 Release Notes titled Security for full details, or KB Article 14542.
There are at least three technological changes associated with moving from FOS v8.2x to FOS v9.0x worth noting:
1. Flow Vision (IO Insight) changes
• FOS 9.0.1x completely automates the learning of Read and Write flows (i.e. your application IOs) and automatically incorporates the learned IT flows into associated FV MAPS rules for monitoring
• This is supported for standard FCP (SCSI) flows as well as for NVMe flows for platforms supporting IO Insight for NVMe
• Upon upgrading to FOS 9x, all user-defined flows will be deprecated/deleted in favour of the automated flow setup – zero set up required - I love this
• Essentially, when you upgrade to FOS 9x, don’t be surprised if you start receiving FV MAPS alerts regarding Read or Write operations not completing quickly enough, or storage arrays making you wait too long for their initial responses to Read or Write requests. This type of monitoring is enabled by default in FOS 9x – these capabilities are detailed elsewhere in this document
• Important: The activation of system flow monitoring, that is the automatic learning of all Reads and Writes, should be automatic when you upgrade to FOS v9x, however this was not the case for the G720s. This will be addressed in the next FOS v9.1x & v9.0.1x patch releases
• When running FOS v9.0.1x, if you have a G720, you can issue the flow —show command to confirm if flow monitoring is enabled, if not, use the command flow --activate sys_flow_monitor to enable it
• Similarly, the low-level MAPS rules associated with IO Insight on the G720s are missing – this too will be addressed in the next FOS v9.1x & v9.0.1x patch releases
2. Zoning Modifications
• FOS 9.0x instituted a fabric-wide zoning lock which is enabled by default and cannot be disabled
• Zoning locks prevent scenarios where multiple administrators, without the other’s knowledge, are using various zoning administration tools (SANnav, CLI, Web Tools, REST API, Target Driven Zoning) and unknowingly step on each other’s work
• FOS 9.0x also increased the zoning database size to 4MB in fabrics consisting entirely of products running FOS v9x
• FOS 9.0x modifies the behavior of zone membership sorting
• As backdrop, prior to FOS 9, two identically named zones with identical memberships on two switches would not be considered identical if the order of the zone members were different
• Prior to FOS v9, Zone1 with a membership order of A,B,C,D would be considered different than Zone1 with a membership order of A,C,B,D
• Many a Brocade pre-sales and field SE have run into the above issue when attempting to help customers merge two fabrics together!
• When you upgrade to FOS 9x, nothing changes initially about your zone membership ordering
• Once you are running FOS 9x, any zoning change or edit made using the following commands on a switch running FOS v9x will result in the clean ordering (in ascending order) of your zone memberships:
• cfgsave
• cfgdisable
• cfgenable
• Note: The sorted zone ordering will be pushed out to all members of the fabric, including those products running FOS v8x
• Zones with mixed membership types will be sorted in this order: PWWNs, D/Ps, and aliases
• Note: Once you’ve performed any zoning edit and committed it, we recommend you to perform switch configuration backups (which in part include the zoning information) which will reflect the updated zoning order
• Do not use old configuration files with unsorted zoning membership when running the configdownload command
• Note: SANnav v2.2.1 and later performs a daily configuration backup of all managed switches at 00:30 SANnav server time
3. Unified Addressing Mode
• FOS 9x when running on Gen 7 platforms greatly simplifies and cleans up a long history of various port addressing modes
• FOS 9x enforces the use one consistent and universal addressing mode called Unified 10-bit Addressing Mode (UAM)
• UAM does NOT apply to Gen 6 systems running v9x
• UAM will apply to X6 Directors field upgraded to become Gen 7 Directors – we call this an X6 to an X6+ upgrade
• Important: Due to the change in port indexing, anyone still utilizing (Domain, Index) or (D,I) zoning will have to convert their zoning index assignments to align to unified addressing mode
• FOS 9x obsoletes 25+ years of addressing modes – namely, you can say goodbye to 8-bit, 9-bit, 10-bit, VF, non-VF addressing modes - some of which varied based upon logical switch type or platform type
• If you’ve ever noticed port indices for Director ports not being contiguous, that’s due to this long history – with FOS 9 on Gen 7 products, index numbering becomes consistent and ordered
• In FOS 9x on Gen 7 platforms, all normal features remain fully supported and have arguably been enhanced. As examples, port address binding issues and NPIV limits on particular platforms have been resolved
• Note: FOS knows if you are running a FICON logical switch, and thus will allocate areas in a compliant manner to meet all FICON requirements – this is automated
• Note: When upgrading your existing Directors to Gen 7 Directors, please take a minute to review When installing Gen 7 Directors section below in this document
Lastly, in FOS v9.0x, the trunk deskew value on Gen 7 platforms was set to 300ns regardless of port speed
• This could result in trunks not forming when Gen 7 gear replaced older generation platforms with DWDM equipment operating at 8/16/32G speeds
• Changes were made in FOS v9.1.1x to address this:
• If the E_Port speed is 8G, 16G, or 32G, the legacy trunk deskew value of 2550ns is used
• If the E_Port speed is 64G, the trunk deskew value remains set to 300ns
• If the E_Port is configured in long distance LD or LS mode, regardless of the speed, the legacy trunk deskew value of 2550ns will be applied.
Upgrading FOS v9.0x to FOS v9.1x – Things to Note
When upgrading to FOS v9.1x, as with every other major FOS version jump, the upgrade is accompanied by operational changes and feature enhancements. What follows is a listing of the feature enhancements as well as noteworthy upgrade considerations (in alphabetical order):
• Fabric Vision MAPS FPI Quiet Time change
• The default MAPS FPI rules have been changed to configure a default Quiet Time of 15-minutes
• FICON
• The following two FICON features have been discontinued by IBM in 2019 and are no longer supported in FOS v9.1x
• PDCM - Prohibit Dynamic Connectivity Mask
• FAF - File Access Facility
• FOS Upgrades
• As of FOS v9.1x, when performing a firmware download, the standard HA reboot triggers the broadcast message “The system is going down for reboot NOW!”
• This is a standard Linux message which can safely be ignored - the download process is non-disruptive to application traffic
• FPIN Congestion signal support on Access Gateway (AG) switches
• Congestion signalling support is enabled by default on AG switches shipping out with FOS v9.1x and later
• If you upgrade an AG switch from FOS v9.0x to v9.1x and desire to have congestion signalling enabled:
• You’ll have to enable it with the following command: portcfgcongestionsignal –enable <port_range>
• Changing this setting is non-disruptive
• For the FPINs to reach the edge devices, make certain you’ve enabled the global FPIN MAPS Action on the AG switches
• FV MAPS additional rule monitoring
• When upgrading from FOS v9.0x to FOS v9.1x, all Access Gateway ports will be moved from the MAPS ALL_HOST_PORTS group to the ALL_OTHER_F_PORTS group
• If rules in these two groups were previously customised, please review the ALL_OTHER_F_PORTs rules post upgrade to ensure they are set as desired
• FOS v9.1x introduces four IO flow-level monitoring rules:
• MAX_RD_PENDING_IO - Monitors the maximum read pending IO per ITL
• MAX_WR_PENDING_IO - Monitors the maximum write pending IO per ITL
• TIMEOUT - Monitors SCSI/NVMe IO exchange timeout monitoring
• This is a tremendous new rule offering!
• Describes the timeout metric which occurs when no associated first response, status, or abort frame is received for that IO
• Defaults to alert is greater than 100 timeouts in a 10s interval
• IO_ERROR - Monitors any other SCSI/NVMe errors status
• This one as well!
• Defaults to alert is greater than 100 timeouts in a 10s interval
• If you’re having an IO error with your SCSI or NVMe traffic and it’s not related to timeouts MAPS category will catch them:
• SCSI Errors:
• Check condition
• Busy
• Reservation conflict
• Aborts
• Task aborted
• SCSI Informational:
• Inquiry
• Read capacity
• Reserve
• Release
• Request Sense
• NVMe:
• Namespace not ready
• LBA out of range
• Capacity exceeded
• Format in progress
• NVMe Informational:
• Read capacity
• Reserve
• Release
• Identify
• NVMe Sequence Level Error Recovery:
• FLUSH basic link serve request
• FLUSH basic link serve response
• RED basic link serve
• NVMe sequence recovery
• FOS v9.1x introduces six port level IO monitoring rules:
• WR_1stXFER_RDY_VIOL - Monitors write first response violations percentage
• RD_1stDATA_TIME_VIOL - Monitors read first response violations percentage
• WR_STATUS_TIME_VIOL - Monitors write exchange completion violations percentage
• RD_STATUS_TIME_VIOL - Monitors read exchange completion violations percentage
• MAX_RD_PENDING_IO - Monitors the maximum read pending IO per target port
• MAX_WR_PENDING_IO - Monitors the maximum write pending IO per target port
• Preserve Domain ID (PDID) – An automated capability ensuring Domain ID consistency after switch reboot and fabric reconfiguration events.
• Restrictive Time Adjustment (RTA) - The system is monitored and protected from disproportionate time changes
• The date cannot be changed beyond ±7 days using the date command
• Your support provider should be contacted in the event a system requires a time change of more than seven days
• SANnav
• It is recommended to upgrade to SANnav v2.2.1 or later prior to upgrading switches to FOS v9.1.1x
• This is predominately for the purposes of using the SANnav’s IO Insight and flow vision features which require SANnav v2.2.1 or later
• SNMPv2 deprecation
• SNMPv2 is not supported in FOS v9.0.1x and is entirely blocked in FOS v9.1x. FOS v9.1x supports both SNMPv1 and SNMPv3
• Switch Decommission
• Switch decommissioning is actually a FOS v9.1.1x feature
• Switch decommissioning can be used by customers who want to erase all data on a switch prior to decommissioning it. The switchdecommission command is highly destructive. Following its use, the switch will be unusable and unrecoverable
• This command requires a Decommission Authorization Code (DAC) which can obtained from Brocade TAC for products with or without support entitlement!
• Traffic Optimization profiles
• FOS v9.1x introduced TO profiles, and there are two of them:
• Sys_TrafOpt_Version1 consists of the PGs supported in FOS v9.0x
• Sys_TrafOpt_Version2 consists of the PGs supported in FOS v9.1x
• As soon as you have upgraded to FOS v9.1x, the newer and more built out Sys_TrafOpt_Version2 profile will be automatically loaded 30 days later
• This activation of the new policy is non-disruptive
• Brocade waits the 30 days just in case a customer wants to downgrade back from v9.1x to v9.0x
• Once the new TO profile is loaded, it only applies to devices which login after the new policy is active. Until devices log out and back in, existing flows will continue to follow the Sys_TrafOpt_version1 profile PGs
• A new CLI command trafopt is available to configure which policy to activate, manage the activation schedule, to abort a scheduled activation, or to view the statistics of PGs associated with the current TO profile
• Zoning
• FOS v9.x deprecates the use of the following zone types:
• Traffic Isolation zones
• Frame redirect zones
• Broadcast zones
• Note: Firmware upgrades to FOS v9.1x will not be allowed if any of those zone types are present
When installing Gen 7 Directors
If you’re physically replacing Gen 5 or Gen 6 Directors with Gen 7 Directors, note that 64Gb/s technology naturally draws more power than 16Gb/s or 32Gb/s. Please take a few minutes to ensure you have sufficient power especially if powering via in-rack PDUs as Gen 6 and Gen 7 Directors are typically powered externally to the rack.
Important: As discussed in Upgrading FOS v8.2x to FOS v9.0.1x – Things to Note section of this document, Unified Addressing Mode (UAM) was incorporated into all Gen 7 products shipping with FOS v9x. UAM has great benefit and is likely ‘the’ final step in port addressing simplification. The downside is the use of UAM on Gen 7 products may impact how you want to cable your infrastructure.
• United Addressing Mode modifies port addressing behaviour to be quite consistent, and port addresses in part determine VC usage
• If you’re not utilizing Virtual fabrics, or if you’re using switches and not Directors, or if you’ve only been using the default logical switch, then nothing changes with UAM – you can go on to the next chapter of this document
• If however, you’ve manually created and utilize Virtual Fabrics:
• If you had previously chosen your physical device/cable placements based upon VC usage, if you’re interested in doing the same again as part of your Gen 7 modernisation, please contact Brocade to discuss the changes resulting from UAM addressing as the cable placements will be considerably different
• Note: Ports of particular importance would be storage virtualisation ports such as SVC nodes or VPLEX nodes, and to a lesser degree, storage ports
• Note: Brocade’s automated Traffic Optimization (TO) feature utilized in open-systems environments may make this entire conversation moot. The TO Performance Groups in FOS v9.0.1x were all SCSI-based for 16Gb/s, 32Gb/s, and 64Gb/s, and in FOS v9.1x are those in addition to NVMe-based and Oversubscribed Device isolation
FOS v7x, v8x & v9x (FICON/Mainframe)
• Switches/Directors carrying FICON traffic support a much smaller subset of FOS versions – the same holds true when utilizing zLinux
• FICON Qualification Support Letters can be found on IBM’s resource link as well as on the following Broadcom website: https://www.broadcom.com/info/brocade/ficon-resources/qualification-support-letters
• Here is a listing of the of the active FOS v8x and v9x FICON supported versions. The designation of Official release indicates an official IBM FICON qualification letter for that FOS version exists:
• FOS v9.1.1 – Official Release – Release Date 7/6/22 – Qualified with SANnav v2.2.1
• As of 12/4/22, FOS v9.1x remains the Latest Major Version of FOS
• FOS v9.1.0b – Official Release – Release Date 3/16/22 – Qualified with SANnav v2.2.0
• As of 12/4/22, FOS v9.1x remains the Latest Major Version of FOS
• FOS v9.0.1e – Official Release – Release Date 8/19/22 – Brocade Target Path - Qualified with SANnav v2.1.1
• As of 12/4/22, FOS v9.0x remains the Established Major Version of FOS
• If upgrading to FOS v9x, my recommendation would be to utilize FOS v9.0.1e
• FOS v9.0.1d – Official Release – Release Date 3/16/22 – Brocade Target Path - Qualified with SANnav v2.1.1
• As of 12/4/22, FOS v9.0x remains the Established Major Version of FOS
• FOS v8.2.3c – Official Release – Release Date 10/7/22 – Brocade Target Path - Qualified with SANnav v2.1.1
• As of 12/22/21, FOS v8.2x remains the Minimum Major Version of FOS
• Moving forward, FICON qualification letters for a particular FOS version will indicate the SANnav version utilized during testing. The SANnav version itself will no longer be of consequence provided it supports the FOS version being utilized
• Note: The most recent FICON qualified FOS version supporting Brocade 7800s was FOS v7.4.1d
• Note: There were later FICON qualified FOS v7x releases, but none qualified on the 7800s
• SANnav v2.1x supports FOS v7.4.0 and later up to FOS v8.2.3x variants, as well as FOS v9.0.1x
• SANnav v2.2x supports FOS v7.4.0 and later up to FOS v8.2.3x variants, as well as FOS v9.1x
Upgrading FOS Versions
Important: If you have embedded switches in your environment and are using SANnav v2.2.0x to manage it, please read Embedded switch FOS upgrades and SANnav v2.2.0x.
• FOS compatibility for Open Systems
• In multi-switch fabrics, regardless of whether or not any given switch is running in Native or Access Gateway mode, all switches in the fabric must be running a minimum of:
• FOS v7.4.2x before upgrading any system in the fabric to FOS v8.1x or later
• FOS v8.1.0x before upgrading any system in the fabric to FOS v9.0x
• FOS v9.0x is NOT compatible with any systems running FOS v7.4.2x UNLESS those systems are running in Access Gateway mode, or, are only communicated with via FCR (Fibre Channel Routing)
• In other words, to run FOS v9.0x on any switch/Director in a given fabric, all other switches/Directors in that fabric MUST be running a minimum of FOS v8.1.0x with the exception of Brocade 300s or modular/bladed switches which can be running FOS v7.4.2x provided they are running in Access Gateway mode
• The entire listing of which FOS versions are compatible with which other FOS versions can be found in the Fabric OS Compatibility section of the FOS Release Notes
• FOS upgrade sequence for Open Systems
• When upgrading multi-switch fabrics, you have upgrade sequence options. What follows is one clean way of bringing all combinations of switch generations and FOS versions up to FOS v8.2.3c1:
• Upgrade all Gen 5 and Gen 6 systems running FOS v8.0.1x to v8.1.2k2
• Note: Before upgrading to FOS v8.1.2k2, ensure you are running FOS v8.0.1b at a minimum
• Upgrade all Gen 5 and Gen 6 systems running FOS v8.1.2k2 to FOS v8.2.3c1
• All Brocade products running FOS v8.1.0a or later can be non-disruptively upgraded to FOS v8.2.3c1 – as noted earlier in this document, the exceptions being the FCIP extension blade (FX8-24) and FCIP extension switch (7810) tunnels
• For example: To upgrade from FOS v8.0.2e to FOS v8.2.3c1, you could upgrade as follows: v8.0.2e -> v8.1.2k2 -> v8.2.3c1
• Upgrading to FOS v9.0.1e1 for Open Systems
• Any Gen 6 Brocade platform which supports FOS 9x that is running FOS v8.2.0 or higher can be directly upgraded to FOS v9.0.1e1
• Any Gen 7 Brocade platform, which will already be running FOS v9.0x, can be directly upgraded to FOS v9.0.1e1
• Important: Web Tools as well as SANnav v2.1.1 and later supports firmware migration from FOS v8.2.1d and later as well as from FOS v8.2.2a or later to FOS v9.0x
• To migrate from non-EULA aware FOS versions (FOS v8.2.2, or FOS v8.2.1c or earlier) to FOS v9.0x using Web Tools or SANnav v2.1.1, switches must first migrate to FOS v8.2.1d or later or to FOS v8.2.2a or later as a first step
• To upgrade from FOS v8.0.2e to FOS v9.0.1e1, you could upgrade as follows: v8.0.2e -> v8.1.2k2 -> v8.2.3c1->v9.0.1e1
• If you upgrade from FOS v8.2x to FOS v9x, don’t forget to check out Global Quiet Time which is a great new feature!
• Upgrading to FOS v9.1x in either Open Systems or FICON environments
• If you want to load FOS v9.1x on your switching product, prior to attempting the upgrade from FOS v9.0x to v9.1x, you must ensure a valid TruFOS certificate exists on the switch. Full information on TruFOS certificates can be found here: TruFOS (Trusted FOS) Certificates
• If the TruFOS certificate validation fails due to a TruFOS Certificate being expired or not yet installed, the following message will appear when attempting the firmware download: Firmwaredownload failed. TruFOS Certificate validation failed
• Upgrading FOS in FICON or zLinux Environments
• You can upgrade directly to FOS v9.0.1e from any FOS v8.2x or later FOS version
• You can upgrade directly to FOS v8.2.3c from any FOS v8.1x or FOS v8.2x FOS version
• FICON High Integrity Fabric (HIF) and FICON Logical Switch (LS)
• The HIF feature is required when FICON channels are attached to switches/Directors running FOS versions below FOS v9.0.0b
• Customers must verify if HIF is enabled for any FOS version prior to FOS v9.0.0b
• The FICON LS feature is required when FICON channels are attached to switches/Directors running FOS v9.0.0b and higher
• Customers must verify that FICON LS is enabled for FOS v9.0.0b or higher
• If HIF or FICON LS is not enabled, FICON channels will go into an Invalid Attach state after a channel or port event occurs that requires the channels to log in