HP Fibre Channel Fabric Migration Guide

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Fabric Migration Guide
Migrating to Fabric
Migrating to Fabric
A Fibre Channel fabric (one or more switches in a configuration) can
provide multiple benefits including independent bandwidth per port,
greater reliability, and increased performance.
Before you change your environment to a fabric supported environment,
read the following sections carefully. They list the advantages and
considerations of migrating to fabric, the requirements for fabric
configurations, and examples of the configurations we support with the
following host bus adapters:
• A5158A Fibre Channel PCI Tachyon TL
• A6684A Fibre Channel HSC Tachlite
• A6685A Fibre Channel HSC Tachlite
• A6795A Fibre Channel 1Gb/2Gb PCI Tachyon XL2
The configuration examples and some of the terminology we used are
specific to the Brocade switch. We used this switch only as an example.
HP also supports other switches. See the “Supported Platforms, Switches
and Devices” link under Fibre Channel HBAs on our web site accessed
through the ITRC. Log on to the ITRC web site (http://itrc.hp.com),
and click on navigate knowledge trees and response center FAQs.
In the Hardware area, navigate the links to networks/mass storage
connectivity/fibre channel/technical support.
Important Considerations of Migrating to Fabric
When migrating from a private loop environment to a fabric
environment, consider the following advantages.
Reliability
• Total removal of LIPs for N_Port (Direct Fabric Attach) devices
results in the following:
— No LIP storms.
— No lost frames due to other devices going offline or coming online
on the link.
This activity can cause long delays (approximately 10 sec) while