Datasheet

Such an entry-level configuration can
consist of one or two Fibre Channel
links to a disk storage array or to an
LTO™ tape drive. An entry-level eight-
port storage consolidation solution can
support up to seven servers with a sin-
gle path to either disk or tape. The
FlexPort feature is designed to enable a
base switch to grow to sixteen ports, in
four port increments, to support more
servers and more storage devices with-
out taking the switch offline.
A high-availability solution can be cre-
ated with redundant switches. This
capability is ideal for server clustering
environments. Such a configuration can
support from six to fourteen servers,
each with dual Fibre Channel adapters
cross-connected to redundant
SAN16M-2 Express Model switches
which are cross-connected to a dual-
controller storage system.
Simple SAN configuration
The introduction of large capacity, high-
availability storage systems offers new
opportunities for cost reduction through
storage consolidation and infrastructure
and management simplification. In older
environments each server accessed its
own dedicated storage capacity using
either internal disks that were contained
within the server or disks which were
part of an external system attached
exclusively to that server. It has become
difficult to sustain that approach as the
requirement for both storage capacity
and numbers of servers has increased.
Storage consolidation is a fundamental
objective of infrastructure simplification
and is based on the philosophy that it is
easier to share and manage capacity
contained in a large capacity, high-
performance and high-availability exter-
nal storage system such as provided by
the IBM TotalStorage DS4000 family.
Fibre Channel Storage Area Networks
(SANs) were developed to provide effi-
cient, high performance access from
many servers to many storage devices.
While it is possible, in very small
environments, to direct-connect
servers to external storage systems
using fibre channel links, it is more
common to configure a SAN switch
between the servers and the storage
system to enable multiple servers to
share the same storage capacity.
This simple SAN is depicted in the
diagram above.
The SAN16M-2 Express Model was
designed specifically for use as the
SAN switch in this type of configuration.
It is easy to install and easy to manage.
The tan, green and blue servers repre-
sent heterogeneous server types which
are members of the same SAN and
share capacity of the large disk system.
The SAN16M-2 Express Model can be
upgraded to 16 ports and is future-
ready to support 4 Gbps servers and
storage devices as they are introduced.
Its flexible design allows participation
with other SAN m-type switches in fab-
rics that evolve as requirements
change. And it supports advanced
functions to enable participation in
complex fabrics including cascaded
switches and ISL trunks.
High availability SAN configuration
Many applications require continuous
operation. A common design approach
to achieve that objective is to run multi-
ple instances of the application across