Brocade Communications Systems 53-0001575-01 manual Design and Best Practices Guide

BROCADE SAN Integration and Application Department

Last Updated

March 29, 2001 3:18 pm

Design and Best Practices Guide

This document contains BROCADE© recommendations and guidelines for configuring a Storage Area Network (SAN). The document includes several reference topologies and also provides pointers to products/solutions from BROCADE partners that can be used to implement the target configuration/solution. This information is for reference only and is meant to provide some ideas and starting points for a SAN design. Brocade provides more in depth training courses on SAN design. See the Brocade web site www.brocade.com to sign up for these courses where this information is covered in more depth.

1.0Introduction

This document details SAN topologies supported by Brocade SilkWorm 2x00 switch fabrics and provides guid- ance on the number of end user ports that can reliably be deployed based on testing done to date. Exceeding these port count guidelines may have unpredictable results on fabric stability.

BROCADE is providing this document as a starting point for users interested in implementing a Storage Area Network (SAN). The tar- get users of this document are individuals who are responsible for developing a SAN architecture on behalf of a client user or an end user who desires information to aid in developing a SAN architecture. Section 1describes SAN topologies and maximum size configu- rations supported as of the publication of this document. Section 2 presents information that is related to SAN Design and that should prove helpful when designing and implementing a SAN. These relate to cabling, inter-switch links, switch counts, and fabric manage- ment options. BROCADE is working with OEMs and integrators exploring fabric solutions of 15, 20, and 30 or more switches. This paper is designed to help in developing fabric solutions that use a large number of switches with hundreds of end nodes in tested and proven topologies. This is a work in progress and as additional information is developed and larger SAN designs are tested this docu- ment will be updated.

Brocade provides SAN design guidance via our sales force to partners and end users. If you need to exceed the limits presented in this guide, please contact a Brocade sales representative to receive help and guidance in designing your fabric.

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