Qlogic SANbox 9100 Frequently Asked Questions Manual

SANbox 9000 Series
®
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) by Pre-Sales Partners & End-User Prospects
1. Question: Is the SANbox 9000 a Director Switch?
Answer: The SANbox 9000 (SB9000) series is classified as a Core Switch for the Open Systems Fibre Channel (FC) Storage Area Network (SAN), with
IP WAN interconnect for medium- to large-enterprise data center environments. The SB9200 BASE model with Fault Tolerant (FT) and HyperStack™
features is Director class, as it provides equivalent or better capabilities for Open Systems environments than a legacy Director switch, albeit without
mainframe support. The SANbox 9000 Stackable Chassis switch is Designed-to-the-Core™ for Open Systems, and thus does not (and will not) support
legacy mainframe FICON technology.
2. Question: Why does the product name include the word "Series"?
Answer: The SANbox 9000 is a series (or portfolio) of several distinct product "models" targeted at different end-user needs, as well as certain competi-
tive offerings. At initial General Availability (GA), QLogic will roll out the SB9100 ENTRY model and the SB9200 BASE model. We anticipate adding other
models in the future.
3. Question: What are the key differences between an SB9100 ENTRY model and an SB9200 BASE model?
Answer: The SANbox 9100 (SB9100) ENTRY model provides a standard configuration of a single CPU Blade and a single 16-port 4Gb FC I/O Blade. The
SANbox 9200 (SB9200) BASE model has a standard configuration of dual CPU Blades and two 16-port 4Gb FC I/O Blades. Obviously, the price of the
SB9100 ENTRY model is significantly lower than the SB9200 BASE model.
4. Question: When would an end-user customer want to select a BASE model over an ENTRY model?
Answer: The key selection criteria would be performance throughput requirements. The SB9200 BASE model has twice the bandwidth of the SB9100
ENTRY model , and should always be chosen for the following industry areas: High Performance Computing (HPC), Video Broadcast, Satellite Telemetry,
etc., that dictate high-throughput data streaming capabilities.
The SB9100 Entry model may be more than adequate from a performance perspective if the user's applications are simply the typical Opens Systems
IT business applications like e-mail, database, etc., since the actual data rates imposed on the 4Gb FC ports are typically less than 20 percent of their
potential. And if the user is still predominantly running a 2Gb FC network, then the ENTRY model is a safe choice.
Since the optional Fault Tolerant (FT) CPU Failover feature is supported for the BASE model (running firmware version 6.6 or later), end-user application
availability requirements would become the next key selection criteria.
5. Question: Does the SB9200 BASE model with two CPUs provide higher availability than the SB9100 ENTRY model with one CPU?
Answer:
Both models have high availability because of the dual-redundant, hot-swappable Fan Blades and Power Supply Blades. A dual CPU 9200 BASE
model without the FT CPU Failover feature will have significantly higher availability than the single CPU 9100 ENTRY model. The higher availability is
from the new firmware (version 6.6 or later). When a CPU fails, the new firmware can immediately re-boot the switch on the cold standby CPU; however,
the single CPU 9100 ENTRY model is unavailable until a replacement CPU Customer Replaceable Unit (CRU) is obtained and installed. With the optional
FT license key feature installed, the dual CPU 9200 BASE model has no single point-of-failure vulnerability, and therefore has ultra-high availability
(99.999 percent) via the automatic transparent CPU failover capability.
Stackable Chassis Switch
F A Q s