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

3-12

McDATA Products in a SAN Environment - Planning Manual

Planning Considerations for Fibre Channel Topologies

• Improved resource manageability. Distributed resources are

consolidated and managed through Fibre Channel connectivity

instead of physical relocation. One management server manages

the operation and connectivity of multiple fabric directors, fabric-

attached devices, arbitrated loop switches, and FC-AL devices.

• Improved security of business applications and data. Fabric

directors and a loop switch allow fabric-attached and FC-AL

devices to be partitioned into restricted-access zones to limit

unauthorized access. Refer to Zoning for information.

When using a

4300 or 4500 Fabric Switch to provide loop-to-switched

fabric connectivity and incorporate FC-AL devices into the enterprise

SAN environment, attach the device to any switch port. The port

senses the FC-AL device and initializes itself as an FL_Port. The loop

device can communicate with fabric devices attached directly to the

switch (connected through F_Ports), or with fabric devices connected

to another switch and communicating through an E_Port (ISL).

Server

Consolidation

Providing fabric connectivity for multiple low-bandwidth servers

(Windows NT or Unix-based) by attaching them individually to an

expensive Fibre Channel director is not a cost-effective solution. A

practical solution is to consolidate servers on an inexpensive loop

switch, then connect the switch to a director E_Port. Figure 3-7

illustrates the consolidation of ten servers on a Sphereon 4500 Switch

(using two unmanaged hubs) through one E_Port connection to a

fabric director.

Each server has a ten MBps bandwidth, therefore the sum of the

bandwidths of all consolidated servers equals the E_Port bandwidth

of 1.0625 Gbps. Connecting another server to the switch would

exceed the E_Port capability and adversely impact director-to-switch

link performance. Other devices (such as tape drives) should not be

connected to a switch used for server consolidation.