FW 07.00.00/HAFM SW 08.06.00 McDATA Products in a SAN Environment Planning Manual (620-000124-500, April 2005)

Introduction to McDATA Multi-Protocol Products

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Introduction to McDATA Multi-Protocol Products

• Implement iSAN routing and BC/DR solutions - SAN routers

provide TCP/IP-based (iFCP protocol) distance extension

solutions that connect geographically-dispersed SANs into an

internetworked storage area network (iSAN), perform iSAN

routing, and run business continuance and disaster recovery

applications over existing MAN or WAN infrastructures. Refer to

iSAN Routing and Implementing BC/DR Solutions for detailed

information.

• Provide connectivity for iSCSI integration - SAN routers

provide cost-effective solutions (based on the iSCSI-protocol) to

consolidate servers and storage that run a wide range of

Windows-based applications. Refer to Consolidating and

Integrating iSCSI Servers and Storage for detailed information.

SAN Router

Performance

SAN routers provide the following general performance features:

• High bandwidth - Fibre Channel ports on the Eclipse 1620 SAN

router provide full-duplex serial data transfer at a rate of 1.0625

Gbps. Fibre Channel ports on the Eclipse 2640 SAN router

provide full-duplex serial data transfer at a rate of 2.1250 Gbps.

Intelligent ports provide Fibre Channel data transmission or,

alternately, high-speed networking (IP) bandwidth through the

following:

— Data compression - SAN router software identifies repetitive

information in an output data stream and applies a

compression algorithm to ensure the data is more compact

and efficiently transmitted.

— FastWrite technology - FastWrite software improves write

performance over WANs by responding to initiator write

commands with local transfer ready (XFR_RDY) commands,

and buffering output data at the SAN router closest to the

corresponding target device. This eliminates XFR_RDY

command transmissions and minimizes bursty data transfer

over the WAN, thus reducing round-trip delays that are

characteristic of extended-distance links.

— Jumbo frames - Two Ethernet frames are typically required to

transmit one Fibre Channel frame consisting of 2,112 bytes.

The jumbo frame feature maps one Ethernet frame to one

Fibre Channel frame, thus providing more efficient data

transmission.