Overview - HP Surestore 64 - Director Switch Planning Manual

Overview

This chapter introduces storage area network (SAN) and Fibre Channel technologies,
provides an overview of the HP Surestore Director FC-64, and describes the director's
capabilities and features. The 64-port director provides dynamic switched connections
between Fibre Channel servers and devices in a SAN environment. Switches are managed
and controlled through:
• HP Enterprise Fabric Connectivity (HP EFC) Server with the HP EFC Manager, Product
Manager, and Fabric Manager applications installed. The HP EFC Server is a notebook
personal computer (PC) that provides a central point of control for up to 48 directors.
• Remote workstation communicating with the HP EFC Server through a corporate
intranet.
• PC platform with an Internet connection to the embedded Web server interface installed
on the director.
Up to three directors are delivered in an HP-supplied equipment rack. The HP EFC Server
is mounted in a slide-out drawer at the center of the rack.
Multiple directors and the HP EFC Server communicate on a local area network (LAN)
through one or more 10/100 Base-T Ethernet hubs. Hubs are daisy-chained as required to
provide additional Ethernet connections as more directors are installed on a customer
network.
Figure 1 illustrates three rack-mount directors, the HP EFC Server, and Ethernet hub.
The director implements Fibre Channel technology that provides high-performance
scalable bandwidth (one gigabit per second), highly-available operation, redundant
switched data paths, long transmission distances (up to 20 kilometers), and high device
population.
2 Overview