The HBA Link Diagnostics feature helps in validating the health of links between Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) and Cisco MDS switches in a network. The servers connect to Storage Area Networks (SANs) through hardware devices are called HBAs. This connectivity comprises of many optical and electrical components that may develop faults during their lifetime. The HBA Link Diagnostics feature allows identification of faulty cables, transceivers, ASICs, drivers, firmware issues or software issues, thereby eliminating dropped frames and ensuring reliable I/O operations of the server.

For more information about the Configuring HBA Link Diagnostics for Cisco MDS switches in a network, see the Cisco MDS 9000 Series NX-OS System Management Configuration Guide.

From the menu bar of Cisco DCNM Web Client, choose Inventory > Switches, and then click the Interfaces tab. The HBA diagnostic button appears in the interfaces tab for SAN discovered switches. Click the HBA diagnostic button to launch Host Diagnostic. The Link Diagnostic screen appears.

The Switch On-Board SAN Analytics feature enables you to retrieve switch on board analytics data from switches. This data is displayed on the Switch Dashboard. To access the Switch On-Board SAN Analytics feature, choose Inventory > View > Switches, and then click the Switch On-Board SAN Analytics tab. The tab displays the following graphs:

• Top 10 Slowest Ports

• Top 10 Slowest Target Ports

• Top 10 Slowest Flows

• Top 10 Slowest ITLs

• Top 10 Port Traffic

• Top 10 Target Ports Traffic

• Top 10 Flow Traffic

• Top 10 ITL Traffic

Currently the health score of a switch is displayed in the switch tables of the Inventory > View > Switches and Dashboard > Network pages. The health score percentage is presented on a color bar. Clicking the color bar displays more detail such as health score calculation, module list, switch port list, and events. The health score of switches can be viewed from the Switch Dashboard. The health score details can be viewed from the System Info tab.

The following is a list of new hardware supported in Cisco DCNM Release 10.4(1).

Cisco MDS 9132T Fibre Channel Switch—The Cisco MDS 9132T 32-Gbps 32-Port Fibre Channel Switch is a powerful compact one rack-unit (1RU) SAN fabric switch. Cisco DCNM 10.4(1) supports Cisco MDS Fibre Channel fixed switch, which provides an optional LEM (Linecard Expansion Module) containing additional 16 ports, while the fixed module has 16 port fixed 4/8/16/32G Fiber Channel. Cisco DCNM can recognize the optional LEM when plugged-in.

Automatic file selection based on the current image selection—Cisco DCNM 10.4(1) enables can select the images automatically to devices of same platform types that support same images. In case of the Cisco Nexus devices the same image is applied for all the devices having same platform and the model number (first two letters of model number). In case of Cisco MDS devices, mapping is as follows:

This mapping applicable for Cisco MDS 9120 and Cisco MDS 9140 switches as well.

Automatic file selection based on version and path—Cisco DCNM 10.4(1) enables you to select kickstart and system image automatically by providing the server details along with the image version and path. You can select the images automatically to devices of same platform types that support same images.

Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) N-port Virtulization (NPV) is an enhanced form of FCoE Initialization Protocol (FIP) snooping that provides a secure method to connect FCoE-capable hosts to an FCoE-capable FCoE forwarder (FCF) device.

With the FC-NPV feature on N9K, Cisco DCNM provides support to discover and manage Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switches with FC-NPV mode and any port configured using the fc type. In addition, you can use Cisco DCNM-SAN NPV wizard to configure Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switches with FC-NPV mode after FC-NPV mode is enabled on the switches.