.Part 2 Fabric Infrastructure Rules HP SAN Design Reference Guide 785352-001

and 48-port enhanced 8 Gb/s Fibre Channel blades, encryption blade, and DC Dir Switch
MP Extension Blade.
• DC SAN Backbone Director and DC04 SAN Director support the 16, 32, 48, and 64-port 8
Gb/s Fibre Channel blades, 10 Gb/s 10/6 FC ISL Blade, MP Router Blade, encryption blade,
and the DC Dir Switch MP Extension Blade.
• SAN Director 4/256 supports the 16, 32, and 48-port 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel blades, 16,
32, and 48-port 8 Gb/s Fibre Channel blades, 10 Gb/s 10/6 FC ISL Blade, the MP Router
Blade, and iSCSI Director Blade.
The B-series switches offer:
• High availability
• Scalability
• Cost efficiency
Model numbering
The B-series Fibre Channel switches typically use the numbering scheme x/y:
• x—The highest speed at which the switch ports can operate, measured in Gb/s
• y—The number of switch ports
For example, the HP StorageWorks SAN Switch 4/16 is a 4 Gb/s switch with 16 ports.
The 16 Gb/s, 8 Gb/s, and 4 Gb/s switch ports autonegotiate the signaling speed. For example,
when you connect a 16 Gb/s or 8 Gb/s port directly to a 4 Gb/s port, both ports run at 4 Gb/s
in each direction. If the ports are not directly connected, the fabric switch that connects the ports
determines the signaling speed.
Model naming
The B-series Fibre Channel switches are typically called HP SAN, SAN Backbone, Core, or Director
switches. SAN switches are edge (entry-level or mid-range) switches. SAN Backbone, Core, and
Director switches are core (enterprise-class) switches. The suffix -EL, V, or N identifies entry-level
switches.
The B-series embedded switches for HP c-Class BladeSystem server environment are called the
Brocade 16Gb SAN Switch for HP BladeSystem c-Class, Brocade 8Gb SAN Switch for HP
BladeSystem c-Class and the Brocade 4Gb SAN Switch for HP c-Class BladeSystem. The B-series
Fibre Channel routers are called the HP StorageWorks 400 Multi-protocol Router (400 MP Router),
Multi-protocol Router Blade (MP Router Blade), and Multi-protocol Router (MP Router). The 8 Gb
SAN extension products are called the HP StorageWorks 1606 Extension SAN Switch and HP
StorageWorks DC SAN Director Multi-protocol Extension Blade.
The current HP model naming convention has the B-series Storage Networking switches named
SNxxxxB where SN stands for Storage Networking switch and B for B-series. The xxxx numbering
is 8000 (Director Class), and 6000 and 3000 (Fabric Class).
Switch models
Table 20 (page 94) and Table 21 (page 94) describe the B-series Fibre Channel switches and
routers currently available from HP (16 Gb/s and 8 Gb/s B-series Fibre Channel switches).
Table 22 (page 95) describes the legacy Fibre Channel switches and routers supported by HP.
HP supports all B-series Fibre Channel switches in a fabric if you:
• Use the firmware versions listed. All like switch models must use the same version when
configured in a single-fabric or multi-fabric SAN. See Table 20 (page 94) through
92 B-series switches and fabric rules