User`s guide

VIXEL INSPEED™ SAN STORAGE SWITCH MODEL 375 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
USER’S GUIDE
EMBEDDED
IN THE FUTURE OF STORAGE 3
SWITCH APPLICATIONS
The Vixel InSpeed™ SAN Storage Switch Model 375 is ideal for consolidation and shared storage
pooling, high-performance shared tape library backup and recovery, server clustering, and
streaming rich media applications. The following sections provide examples of these applications.
Storage Consolidation and Shared Storage Pooling
In this configuration, the switch enables multiple hosts to share single or multiple storage
systems. This application replaces direct-attached configurations that require multiple storage
systems to be attached to separate servers, which often results in difficult to manage multiple
systems and trapped, unused storage islands (storage cannot be shared with other servers).
Benefits include:
• Improved incremental scalability–connect up to 20 hosts and/or other storage devices,
including tape libraries, to a single switch.
• Lower storage management support costs.
• Improved capacity utilization that enables effective use of both servers and storage.
For larger system environments, multiple switches can be connected and Automatic Trunking can
be used to keep performance and availability at high levels. As a best practice when using
multiple switches, connect servers and their related storage devices through the same switch to
optimize performance.
Figure 1-1: Before storage consolidation...
and after storage consolidation.
Figure 1-2: Multiple switch storage consolidation diagram