FAQ

Brocade® SAN Health®

Frequently Asked Questions
Version 4.2.2

Overview
Brocade® SAN Health® is an easy-to-use fabric auditing tool that is provided to all Brocade customers and partners free of
charge. With a simple download and installation to any modern Windows machine that has connectivity to the switches to
be audited, SAN administrators can get a comprehensive report and diagram of their Fibre Channel switches and the
attached devices.

For additional product information, go to www.broadcom.com/sanhealth.

General Questions and Answers

How much does SAN Health cost?
Brocade SAN Health is a free tool that you can use as many times as you want.

What is required to install and use SAN Health?

To use SAN Health, download the latest installation file from www.broadcom.com/sanhealth and install it on any modern
Windows machine with the following:
 Intel P4 or AMD equivalent (AMD K7)
 Microsoft Windows XP or higher
 512 MB of RAM and 20 MB of available hard disk space

How do I use SAN Health?

Prior to using the Brocade SAN Health tool, please review the videos and sample report at www.broadcom.com/sanhealth.
Here you'll find all the instructions necessary to run SAN Health in your environment. As a reminder, a SAN is composed of
one or more related fabrics and devices (for example, a dual-fabric SAN). A fabric consists of one or more connected
switches. While many users of SAN Health run the capture tool on each fabric in a SAN simultaneously, it might make sense
to run SAN Health sequentially on each fabric in the SAN (for example, Fabric A first and then Fabric B). It is perfectly
acceptable to run SAN Health by capturing the fabric on one side of a redundant SAN and then capturing the other fabric.

What is the best way to name my fabrics and SAN when running SAN Health?
You should think carefully about the names that you choose because they are used extensively in the report and are the
basis of section headings. Using logical names will help produce a report that is easier to read. You can base the names on
the physical location of the switches, the logical location of the switches, or even the use of the switches (for instance,
switches attached to the backup portion of the SAN).

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What levels of Brocade’s Fabric Operating Systems are supported in SAN Health?

SAN Health Version

Product
4.0 4.1 4.2
Brocade FC Switch
Audit Switch FOS 5 or above FOS 5 or above FOS 6 or above
Port Performance Capture FOS 5 or above FOS 6.2 or above FOS 7.4 or above
Brocade M Series (McData)
Audit Switch Yes Yes No
Port Performance Capture No No No
Cisco FC Switch
Audit Switch Yes Yes Yes
Port Performance Capture No No No

How long can I capture performance data?

Version 4.2.2 of SAN Health can capture performance data for a maximum of 24 hours. To capture additional performance
data, simply schedule a new instance of SAN Health to run after the initial 24-hour period has expired. For long-term
performance capture, please look at other products that Brocade offers.

When SAN Health is running, occasionally I see an unknown command response.

Should I worry?
No, this is normal and expected. For example, when you issue the slotshow command against a non-chassis-based
system, newer switches respond with command not available on this platform, whereas older switches respond
with command unknown. In addition, the older the firmware level is, the fewer commands that respond with values.

I can’t remember where to submit my data file. Where do I send it?

If you open the .BSH file (using any text editor), the details are at the top of the page. You can attach the .BSH file to an email
message and send it to [email protected], or you can upload it via the Web at
www.sanhealth.broadcom.com/upload/.

When SAN Health saves the .BSH file, what type of encryption is used?
When the file is complete, SAN Health double-encrypts and compresses the file. The first encryption pass uses 256-bit AES.
The second encryption pass (after the compression) is Triple DES.

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I have an existing .SET file that I’ve been using, but now I’ve added or changed a
switch in the fabric. How can I make sure that SAN Health sees the changed fabric?
Whenever a new switch is added or a switch is swapped out of a fabric, you’ll need to manually open the .SET file in SAN
Health and click the Test Fabric Connectivity, Get Switch Details button so that SAN Health automatically finds all the
newly attached fabric members. Or you can add the new switches using their IP addresses on the Add Switches tab. Either
way, you'll also need to input the user names and passwords (although if they are the same credentials as existing switches
in that fabric, you can set them as such on the Fabric tab with one click of a button). Then, start the audit to make sure that
all switches can be logged in to and successfully audited. After that, make sure to resave the .SET file before closing SAN
Health. There is no fully automatic way to do this.

Options
Options can be left as default, and they generally are. If you are running SAN Health for the first time, best practices are to
leave the options at their default and run one report to see if there is anything that you want to change. If there is, then check
the options for items that can be changed.

General Options
 Working Directory. The working directory can be changed to anywhere the logged-in user has read/write access.
 Timeouts. If communication from the SAN Health workstation and the switches is problematic, adjust the timeout
appropriately here.
 CPU Load. Adjust the processing load on the CPU here. This is rarely needed because SAN Health automatically
adjusts to most capable workstations.
 Protocol. Select Telnet or SSH here.
 IP Privacy. IP addresses that will show in the report can be masked ahead of time by selecting this option.

Switch Diagnostic Options

This tab allows you to select (or deselect) the commands that will be run against the switches in your fabric. Refer to the
Brocade Fabric OS Command Reference Manual for information about any Brocade command. Refer to Cisco
documentation for information about any Cisco command. Also, look under Options > Switch Diagnostics to ensure which
commands are present and selected.

Note that it is undesirable to deselect commands because this will result in blank or completely missing sections in the
resulting SAN Health report.

On this tab, you can also set the option to have the Port Statistic counters on the switch reset at the end of the audit. Doing
this will enable you to compare the port stats between two consecutive SAN Health reports to see how they've incremented
over time.

Device Names Options

This tab has three main functions: choosing which value to use when naming your devices in the report, adding a custom
file of names and/or values, and loading a DCFM or EFCM Nicknames file into the SAN Health audit. Please see the on-
screen instructions for each function.

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Report Format Options

Use this tab to select the content and format of the Excel report that will be provided when the SAN Health audit is processed.
This tab has the following options:
 Create full length SAN Health report vs. Create a shorter summary report
Selecting the first option, or leaving it default, will include all the possible pages within the Excel report. Selecting the
second option will eliminate the port tables, the hidden performance data, the visible performance graphs, and the zoning
sheets. This second option greatly speeds up the time to generate the report but obviously reduces the amount of content
in the report.
 Include performance graphs in the report
This is also available as a standalone option aside from the shorter summary report.
 Include the Visio placeholder page
Please note that you may eliminate the Visio image page if you are not embedding an image.
 Use the device name rather than the port number
This option is included in case you prefer the graph to have a device name rather than the port number. This may make
it easier for you to troubleshoot performance issues.
 Include empty ports in the report
You have the option to either list all of the empty ports or, with the default setting, exclude empty ports to reduce the page
count of the report. If you choose to list the empty ports, you will be able to see what SFPs are inserted, if any, in the
empty ports.
 Excel Report Formatting Options
Here you can change the report to be formatted for “Letter Size” paper or “A4 Size” paper. You can also add a company
logo throughout the report.

Diagram Format Options

The options on this tab are for the Visio diagram. The labels used for the icons can be configured to display the information
that you choose.

Audit Data File Upload Options

The Audit Data File Upload options provide the ability to have SAN Health automatically send the resulting BSH audit file to
the report generation queue using one of two technologies: Email or HTTPS.

Email

The SMTP protocol can be used to send the BSH file to an email address of your specification. Usually this is directly to the
report generation queue at [email protected]. However, it is dependent on your company’s firewall
restrictions for emails originating from workstations that are not designated email servers. You may need to send the BSH
file to an email box within your company’s domain and then use an inbox rule to automatically forward it to the Brocade report
generation queue. To set up this option, do the following:
1. Check the box next to Automatically send the BSH file to the report generation queue on audit completion.
2. Click the radio button next to Submit the BSH file using email.
3. Enter the “From” address in the box next to Set The From Address As.
This will typically be your own email address. Ensure that you have permission to send email from the address that you
input here.

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4. Enter the “To” address in the box next to Email the BSH Data File To.
This will typically be [email protected].
5. Optionally enter the SMTP server address in the box next to SMTP Server (Optional).
It is acceptable to leave this field blank since SAN Health will automatically look up the MX record for the domain specified
on the email address. The field has been included only because some people may wish to pass the email through a
different SMTP gateway than the one that is specified in the MX record for the given domain name. Check with your IT
department for the internal SMTP server address, if needed.
6. If successful, you will receive an email reply.
7. If unsuccessful, there are several places where the email could be blocked before reaching Brocade’s servers:
 At the SAN Health workstation itself
Check the locally installed virus software and firewall software for SMTP port blocking.
 At the LAN router or firewall
Check with your IT department to see if SMTP is being actively blocked.
 At the SMTP server
Check with your IT department to see if SMTP emails that do not originate from the SMTP server itself are allowed.
8. To test without IT involvement, try sending emails to different addresses: to your own corporate address, then out to
another address on your domain, and then out to a web-based address.
If any of these tests fail, you’ll be able to determine whether your SMTP emails should be getting to Brocade.

9. If all these steps fail, contact [email protected] for more assistance.

The automatic upload option is particularly useful when combined with scheduled/unattended audits.

HTTPS

If the workstation running SAN Health has Internet connectivity, you may be able to automatically submit the BSH file via
HTTPS. To set up this option, do the following:
1. Check the box next to Automatically send the BSH file to the report generation queue on audit completion.
2. Click the radio button next to Submit the BSH file using HTTPS.
3. Click the Send A Test https File button.
A .BSHTest file will be sent to the report generation queue.
4. If this .BSHTest file is successfully sent, you will receive an email at the address previously entered in the Report Return
section on the Details tab.
5. If this .BSHTest file is not successfully sent, check with your IT department for any firewall settings that may need to be
changed.
6. Contact [email protected] for assistance if these steps fail.

The automatic upload option is particularly useful when combined with scheduled/unattended audits. See this same Options
tab, Audit Data File Upload, for instructions with scheduling unattended audits.

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