User`s manual

Preliminary
Cable Fibre Channel Devices to the Switch
SANbox-8 Fibre Channel Switch
2-8 Installation 59008-03 Rev. A Installer’s/User’s Manual
Private Devices
Private devices do not have full Fibre Channel addressing capability. They only
have the Arbitrated Loop Physical Address (ALPA) portion of the Fibre Channel
Physical Address. These devices only exist on loops and unless the Switch offers
extra support, these devices cannot communicate outside their own loop.
Private devices connect to Segmented Loop Ports (SL_Ports) or Translated Loop
Ports (TL_Ports). You must use Switch Management to configure any or all ports to
SL or TL_Ports. Refer to Section 1 General Description for a description of SL and
TL_Ports. Use Switch Management to configure SL and TL_Ports. Refer to
“Configure the Ports” on page 2-17.
Mixing Public and Private Devices on the Same Loop.
You may place a Private device on a Public loop but the Private device will not be
able to communicate outside the loop.
You may place a Public device on a Private loop but the Public device functions as
a Private device.
Switch Ports
Any Fibre Channel port on the Switch may be an FL_Port, SL_Port, TL_Port, or a
T_Port. Refer to Section 5 Multi-Chassis Fabrics for a description of T_Ports. The
type of media used (fiber optic cable or copper) depends on the type of Fibre
Channel adapter in the attached device and the type of GBICs used in the Switch.
You may populate the Switch with any assortment of approved GBICs appropriate
for your interconnection media type.
Tuning
You can optimize the system performance by connecting devices which have the
greatest amount of traffic to ports on the Switch which are most efficiently inter-
connected.The most efficient performance is within a group of four ports within
the same Application-Specific-Integrated-Circuit (ASIC). These groups are:
• Ports 1-4
• Ports 5-8
When a frame source-port and destination-port are within the same port group, you
will realize:
• The lowest Class 2/Class 3 frame latency
• The highest Class 2/Class 3 point-to-point bandwidth
• The highest Class 2/Class 3 aggregate bandwidth
When a frame source-port and destination-port are not within the same port group
the interconnection is slightly less efficient.