Fabric Scalability - McDATA StorageWorks 2/140 - Director Switch Planning Manual

Figure 3-16

Fabric Scalability

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Interswitch Link
Fabric Connection
Redundant Fabrics
When deploying redundant fabrics, it is not required that the fabrics
be symmetrical. As an example, single-attached devices, such as tape
drives and noncritical servers and storage, can be logically grouped
and attached to one of the fabrics.
Businesses are experiencing an unprecedented growth of information
and the requirement to maintain that information online. To meet
these requirements, Fibre Channel SANs provide the theoretical
infrastructure to connect thousands of servers to hundreds of storage
devices. To provide enterprise-class performance, scalable fabric
designs are required. Refer to
Internetworking Solutions
A scalable fabric allows for nondisruptive addition of fabric elements
(directors, fabric switches, and SAN routers) or ISLs to increase the
size or performance of the fabric or SAN. Large, scalable fabrics and
SANs are constructed by incorporating:
Planning Considerations for Fibre Channel Topologies
Planning Considerations for Fibre Channel Topologies
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Chapter 4, Implementing SAN
for detailed information.
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