McDATA Sphereon 4300 Specifications download pdf (Page 102)

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McDATA Products in a SAN Environment - Planning Manual

Planning Considerations for Fibre Channel Topologies

• Tier 2 - A Tier 2 device connects to an edge switch and Fibre

Channel traffic from the device must traverse only one ISL (hop)

to reach a device attached to a core director or switch.

• Tier 3 - A Tier 3 device connects to an edge switch and Fibre

Channel traffic from the device can traverse two ISLs (hops) to

reach a device attached to a core director or switch.

SAN Islands

A SAN island is an isolated or geographically diverse Fibre Channel

fabric. These fabrics may also comprise different topologies (mesh or

core-to-edge), but may require connectivity for shared data access,

resource consolidation, data backup, remote mirroring, or disaster

recovery.

When connecting multiple fabrics, data traffic patterns and fabric

performance requirements must be well known. Fabric island

connectivity must adhere to topology limits, including maximum

number of fabric elements and ISL hop count. It is also essential to

maintain data locality within fabric islands as much as possible and

to closely monitor bandwidth usage between the fabric islands. Refer

to SAN Island Consolidation for additional information.

Planning for Multiswitch Fabric Support

A Fibre Channel topology that consists of one or more interconnected

director or switch elements is called a fabric. The product operational

software provides the ability to interconnect directors and switches

(through E_Port connections) to form a multiswitch fabric. Support of

multiswitch fabric operation is a major feature of a director or fabric

switch. Consider installation of multiple directors or switches to form

a high-availability fabric topology that supports multiple, full-

bandwidth data transmission paths between servers and devices.

Figure 3-11 illustrates a simple multiswitch fabric. In the figure, the

three fabric elements are Intrepid 6064 Directors.

Fabric elements cooperate to receive data from the N_Port of an

attached device, route the data through the proper director or switch

fabric ports (F_Ports), and deliver the data to the N_Port of a

destination device. The data transmission path through the fabric is

typically determined by the fabric elements and is transparent to the

user. Subject to zoning restrictions, devices attached to any of the

interconnected directors or switches can communicate with each

other through the fabric.

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McDATA Sphereon 4300 Specifications Page 102