FW 05.01.00 and SW 07.01.00 HP StorageWorks SAN High Availability Planning Guide (AA-RS2DC-TE, June 2003)

Planning Considerations for Fibre Channel Topologies
78 SAN High Availability Planning Guide
Planning for Multi-Switch Fabric Support
A Fibre Channel topology that consists of one or more interconnected director or
switch elements is called a fabric. The product operational software provides the
ability to interconnect directors and switches (through E_Port connections) to
form a multi-switch fabric. Support of multi-switch fabric operation is a major
feature of a director or edge switch.
Consider installation of multiple directors or switches to form a high-availability
fabric topology that supports multiple, full- bandwidth data transmission paths
between servers and devices. Figure 35 illustrates a simple multi-switch fabric. In
the figure, the three fabric elements are Director 2/64s.
Figure 35: Example multi-switch fabric