DELL Brocade FC8-48E 210-40339 Data Sheet

Systems Architecture

Chassis

Single chassis: Up to 384 (Brocade DCX 8510-8) or 

192 (Brocade DCX 8510-4) 16 Gbps (E, F, D, M, and 

EX) Fibre Channel ports using 48-port 16 Gbps Fibre 

Channel blades. Up to 512 (Brocade DCX 8510-8) or 

256 (Brocade DCX 8510-4) 8 Gbps (E, F, D, M, and 

EX) Fibre Channel ports using 64-port 8 Gbps Fibre 

Channel blades.  
Multi-chassis with UltraScale ICL ports: Up to 3840  

16 Gbps Fibre Channel ports (using 16 Gbps 48-port 

blades); up to 5120 8 Gbps Fibre Channel ports 

(using 8 Gbps 64-port blades); UtraScale ICL ports 

(32 or 16 per chassis, optical QSFP) connect up to 

nine chassis in a full mesh topology or up to 10 

chassis in a core-edge topology. Each Brocade DCX 

8510 chassis that connects to four or more Brocade 

DCX 8510 chassis via UltraScale ICLs requires an 

Enterprise ICL license.

Control processor

Redundant (active/standby) control processor modules

Scalability

Full fabric architecture of 239 switches

Certified maximum

6000 active nodes; 56 switches, 19 hops in Brocade 

Fabric OS

®

 fabrics; 31 switches, larger fabrics certified 

as required

Special-purpose 

blades

Brocade FS8-18 Encryption Blade provides plug-in 

encryption of data on disk or tape, supporting 

industry-standard AES-256 and DataFort-compatible 

encryption mode (16 8 Gbps Fibre Channel ports; up 

to four blades; requires Brocade Network Advisor).
Brocade FX8-24 Extension Blade provides SAN 

extension over IP networks (12 8 Gbps Fibre Channel 

ports, 10 1 GbE ports with license option for up to two 

10 GbE ports per blade; up to four blades).

Performance

Fibre Channel: 2.125 Gbps line speed, full duplex; 

4.25 Gbps line speed, full duplex; 8.5 Gbps line 

speed, full duplex; 10.53 Gbps line speed, full duplex; 

14.025 Gbps line speed, full duplex; auto-sensing of 

2, 4, 8, and 16 Gbps port speeds; 10 Gbps and 

optionally programmable to fixed port speed

ISL trunking

Frame-based trunking with up to eight 16 Gbps ports 

per ISL trunk; up to 128 Gbps per ISL trunk
Exchange-based load balancing across ISLs with DPS 

included in Brocade Fabric OS

BROCADE DCX 8510 BACKBONE SPECIFICATIONS

Chassis bandwidth

Brocade DCX 8510-8: 8.2 Tbps per chassis  

(384 ports × 16 Gbps data rate + 2.048 Tbps  

UltraScale ICL bandwidth)
Brocade DCX 8510-4: 4.1 Tbps per chassis 

(192 ports × 16 Gbps data rate + 1.024 Tbps  

UltraScale ICL bandwidth)

Slot bandwidth

512 Gbps (data rate)

Local switching 

bandwidth

512 Gbps for Brocade FC16-32:  

32 ports × 16 Gbps (data rate)
768 Gbps for Brocade FC16-48:  

48 ports × 16 Gbps (data rate)
256 Gbps for Brocade FC8-32E:  

32 ports × 8 Gbps (data rate)
384 Gbps for Brocade FC8-48E:  

48 ports × 8 Gbps (data rate) 
512 Gbps for Brocade FC8-64:  

64 ports × 8 Gbps (data rate)

UltraScale ICL 

bandwidth

Brocade DCX 8510-8: 2.048 Tbps; 32 UltraScale ICL 

ports provide the equivalent of 128 16 Gbps ports. 

Each UltraScale ICL port provides 64 Gbps bandwidth 

over a QSFP (4×16 Gbps) link.
Brocade DCX 8510-4: 1.024 Tbps; 16 UltraScale ICLs 

provide the equivalent of 64 16 Gbps ports. Each 

UltraScale ICL port provides 64 Gbps bandwidth over 

a QSFP (4×16 Gbps) link.
Both models: Frame-based trunking is enabled 

between four UltraScale ICLs. DPS distributes 

exchanges across all frame trunks.

Switch latency

Locally switched port latency is 700 ns; blade-to-blade 

latency is 2.1 µsec; encryption/compression is 

5.5 µsec per node; Forward Error Correction (FEC) 

adds 400 ns between E_Ports (enabled by default).

Maximum frame size 2112-byte payload
Frame buffers

8192 per 16-port group on 32-port blades and up to 

8192 per 24-port group on 48-port blades, 

dynamically allocated

Classes of service

Class 2, Class 3, Class F (inter-switch frames)

Fibre Channel  

port types

D_Port (ClearLink Diagnostic Port), E_Port, EX_Port, 

F_Port, M_Port (Mirror Port); optional port type control

Data traffic types

Fabric switches supporting unicast