San Fabric-Attached Ds3500 - IBM System Storage DS3500 Introduction And Implementation Manual

Draft Document for Review March 28, 2011 12:24 pm
Figure 4-35 Two hosts with redundant connections to a dual controller DS3500
If you need to connect more than four Fibre Channel hosts to a DS3500 storage subsystem
using redundant host connections then you will need to use a SAN fabric infrastructure. This
is discussed in the next section.

4.8.4 SAN fabric-attached DS3500

If you want to connect more than four host servers using the Fibre Channel interface then you
will need to use a switched fabric SAN infrastructure. In this section we describe the general
characteristics and requirements of a SAN infrastructure and also introduce SAN zoning
requirements and then show some examples of SAN fabric-attached configurations.
SAN interconnects
A Fibre Channel SAN fabric is used to connect devices. A SAN fabric can be as simple as a
single cable connecting two devices. However, the term is most often used to describe a more
complex network using cables and interface connectors, HBAs, extenders, and switches.
SAN switches
Fibre Channel switches function in a manner similar to traditional network switches to provide
increased bandwidth, scalable performance, an increased number of devices, and in certain
Chapter 4. IBM System Storage DS3500 and EXP3500 Cabling
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