Cisco AP775A - Nexus Converged Network Switch 5010 Configuration Manual page 579

Configuring and Managing VSANs
The following figure shows a physical Fibre Channel switching infrastructure with two defined VSANs:
VSAN 2 (dashed) and VSAN 7 (solid). VSAN 2 includes hosts H1 and H2, application servers AS2 and AS3,
and storage arrays SA1 and SA4. VSAN 7 connects H3, AS1, SA2, and SA3.
Figure 61: Example of Two VSANs
The four switches in this network are interconnected by VSAN trunk links that carry both VSAN 2 and
VSAN 7 traffic. You can configure a different inter-switch topology for each VSAN. In the preceeding figure,
the inter-switch topology is identical for VSAN 2 and VSAN 7.
Without VSANs, a network administrator would need separate switches and links for separate SANs. By
enabling VSANs, the same switches and links may be shared by multiple VSANs. VSANs allow SANs to be
built on port granularity instead of switch granularity. The preceeding figure illustrates that a VSAN is a group
of hosts or storage devices that communicate with each other using a virtual topology defined on the physical
SAN.
The criteria for creating such groups differ based on the VSAN topology:
• VSANs can separate traffic based on the following requirements:
OL-16597-01
◦ Different customers in storage provider data centers
◦ Production or test in an enterprise network
◦ Low and high security requirements
◦ Backup traffic on separate VSANs
◦ Replicating data from user traffic
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switch CLI Software Configuration Guide
VSAN Topologies
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