User`s manual

Preliminary
Cascade Topology
SANbox-8 Fibre Channel Switch
Installer’s/User’s Manual 59008-03 Rev. A Multi-Chassis Fabrics 5-11
Cascade Topology
The term “cascade” indicates that chassis are connected in a line “one-to-the-
next”. You may optionally have chassis interconnections from the last chassis back
to the first chassis (Loop). The loop provides better latency because any chassis can
route traffic in the shortest direction to any another chassis in the loop. The loop
also provides failover when only one chassis interconnection is used. Figure 5-1
shows an example of Cascade-with-a-loop interconnection.
Figure 5-1 Cascade Example
In fabrics containing two or three chassis, Cascade-with-a-loop topology and Mesh
topology are exactly the same. Note in Figure 5-1 that if the fabric contained only
three chassis and the loop back to the first chassis came from chassis 3, that each
chassis would be directly connected to each other chassis which is the definition of
Mesh topology.
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