Cascade Topology - Qlogic SANbox 5600 Series Installation Manual

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Cascade Topology

A cascade topology describes a fabric in which the switches are connected in
series. If you connect the last switch back to the first switch, you create a
cascade-with-a-loop topology as shown in
because any switch can route traffic in the shortest direction to any switch in the
loop. The loop also provides failover should a switch fail.
Using 16-port SANbox 5600 Series switches, the cascade fabric shown in
Figure 3-6
Each chassis link contributes up to 425 MB of bandwidth between chassis,
850 MB in full duplex. However, because of the sequential structure, that
bandwidth will be shared by traffic between devices on other chassis.
Latency between any two ports is no more than two chassis hops.
Forty-eight SFP Fibre Channel ports are available for devices.
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has the following characteristics:
Figure 3-6 Cascade-with-a-Loop Topology
Multiple Chassis Fabrics
Figure 3-6. The loop reduces latency
3 – Planning
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