Network Router User Manual

SAN Design: March 29, 2001 3:18 pm

53-0001575-01 BROCADE Technical Note Page: 12 of 31

2.7 SAN BUILDING BLOCK - MESHED FABRIC CONSISTING OF TWO STAR TOPOLOGIES CONNECTED BY A MESH

FIGURE 7. SAN Building Block showing expansion to 17 switch Mesh Fabric

• An atomic building block of 8 switches (star) for larger SANs

• Design can be expanded horizontally or vertically- horizontal

expansion shown above using mesh design

• Redundant paths through the fabric by having at least two inter-

switch links per switch

• Note: nodes can be on exterior switches or on interior switches.

This will enable hosts/storage to be co-located on a switch if the

application/data is closely associated with the host. Or, the interior

switches can be used for storage devices shared by hosts on the

exterior switches, eliminating a hop in the host<--->storage

connection

• This basic 8 switch design with single ISL’s accommodates 104

end nodes

• When merging, connect the core switches using mesh

DESIGN GUIDANCE

- Recommend use of FOS version 2.1.9g/2.2.2 or higher

- Do not exceed 17 switches in this topology

- No more than three inter-switch links per edge switch

- Maximum ports 220 (single ISL)

- Max hops 6

- Take advantage of any known locality

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