FW V06.XX/HAFM SW V08.02.00 HP StorageWorks SAN High Availability Planning Guide (AA-RS2DD-TE, July 2004)
Table Of Contents
- SAN HA Planning Guide
- Contents
- About this Guide
- Introduction to HP Fibre Channel Products
- Product Management
- Planning Considerations for Fibre Channel Topologies
- Fibre Channel Topologies
- Planning for Point-to-Point Connectivity
- Characteristics of Arbitrated Loop Operation
- Planning for Private Arbitrated Loop Connectivity
- Planning for Fabric-Attached Loop Connectivity
- Planning for Multi-Switch Fabric Support
- Fabric Topologies
- Planning a Fibre Channel Fabric Topology
- Fabric Topology Design Considerations
- FICON Cascading
- Physical Planning Considerations
- Port Connectivity and Fiber-Optic Cabling
- HAFM Appliance, LAN, and Remote Access Support
- Inband Management Access (Optional)
- Security Provisions
- Optional Features
- Configuration Planning Tasks
- Task 1: Prepare a Site Plan
- Task 2: Plan Fibre Channel Cable Routing
- Task 3: Consider Interoperability with Fabric Elements and End Devices
- Task 4: Plan Console Management Support
- Task 5: Plan Ethernet Access
- Task 6: Plan Network Addresses
- Task 7: Plan SNMP Support (Optional)
- Task 8: Plan E-Mail Notification (Optional)
- Task 9: Establish Product and HAFM Appliance Security Measures
- Task 10: Plan Phone Connections
- Task 11: Diagram the Planned Configuration
- Task 12: Assign Port Names and Nicknames
- Task 13: Complete the Planning Worksheet
- Task 14: Plan AC Power
- Task 15: Plan a Multi-Switch Fabric (Optional)
- Task 16: Plan Zone Sets for Multiple Products (Optional)
- Index
Planning Considerations for Fibre Channel Topologies
91SAN High Availability Planning Guide
Fabric Topologies
Several topologies exist from which to build a Fibre Channel fabric infrastructure.
This section describes the most effective fabric topologies and provides guidance
on when to deploy each topology. The topologies are effective for a wide variety
of applications, are extensively tested by HP, and are deployed in several
customer environments.
Fabric topologies described in this section include:
■ Cascaded Fabric
■ Ring Fabric
■ Mesh Fabric
■ Core-to-Edge Fabric
■ Fabric Island
Cascaded Fabric
A cascaded fabric consists of a linear string of directors or switches connected by
one or more ISLs. Each fabric element is connected to the next fabric element in
line. The end-point fabric elements are not connected to each other. Figure 36
illustrates a cascaded fabric topology.
Cascaded fabrics are typically inexpensive, easy to deploy, and provide a simple
solution to add additional fabric devices. However, this fabric design has low
reliability because each director, switch, or ISL is a single point of failure. In
addition, the design has limited scalability because the maximum hop count can
be quickly exceeded when fabric elements are added.