Obtaining Professional Services; Mixed Fabric Design Considerations - McDATA StorageWorks 2/140 - Director Switch Planning Manual

Planning Considerations for Fibre Channel Topologies
3
Obtaining
Professional
Services

Mixed Fabric Design Considerations

McDATA Products in a SAN Environment - Planning Manual
3-40
• High-port count directors - Installing high-port count directors as
SAN building blocks provides a larger number of non-blocking
Fibre Channel ports per fabric element and reduces the need for
ISLs. Newer products support high-bandwidth (10.2000 Gbps)
ISLs that also reduce the fabric ISL count. In addition, fabrics and
sub-fabrics can be merged or maintained as separate entities
through dynamic partitioning. Refer to
Considerations and Inter-FlexPar Routing
• SAN routers - Installing SAN routers provides interoperable
E_Port connectivity between local SAN fabrics. However, SAN
routers terminate the E_Port connection at each SAN edge. This
allows devices in each SAN to communicate through the router,
but preserves the autonomy of each local SAN. Refer to
Operation and Inter-FlexPar Routing
Scalability also relates to investment protection. If a core fabric switch
is replaced with a newer or higher port count switch (such as the
Intrepid 10000 Director), it is often valuable to use the existing switch
elsewhere in the fabric (at the edge).
Planning and implementing a multiswitch fabric topology can be a
complex and difficult task. Obtain planning assistance from
McDATA's professional services organization before implementing a
fabric topology.
This section discusses mixed fabric design considerations, including:
• Fibre Channel Protocol (FCP) and FICON environments in a
single fabric.
• Multiple data transmission speeds (1.0625, 2.1250, 4.2500, and
10.2000 Gbps) in a single fabric.
General Fabric Design
for information.
R_Port
for information.