Emulex 355 manual Chapter Introduction, Overview

EMULEX MODEL 355 SAN STORAGE SWITCH
USER’S GUIDE	CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1	INTRODUCTION
Overview	1
Features	2

Note: Important safety, electromagnetic compatibility, and regulatory information is contained in the Safety & Regulatory Guide. The installation and use of this product must be in accordance with the information provided in that guide.

This guide is designed to provide users with the necessary information to install and manage the Emulex® Model 355 SAN Storage Switch for use in Fibre Channel applications in typical entry-level Storage Area Networks (SANs).

OVERVIEW

The Emulex Model 355 SAN Storage Switch is designed for entry-level Storage Area Networks (SANs), which provide the following advantages over direct attached storage:

•Greater application availability

•Higher performance between servers and storage devices

•Improved storage asset utilization

•Lower storage management and support costs

•Incremental scalability to keep up with difficult to estimate storage growth

This switch is ideal for storage pooling and consolidation, high-performance shared tape library backup and recovery, server clustering, and streaming rich media applications.

Enclosed in a 1U, half-rack form factor enclosure, the switch is built around the InSpeed™ SOC 320 and is controlled by firmware loaded into the on-board Flash.

The switch is designed as a central interconnect following the ANSI FC-AL standard. Devices are connected to the switch through Small Form-factor Pluggable (SFP) transceivers and cables. Each attached node has 1 or 2 Gigabits per second (Gb/s) of Fibre Channel bandwidth. The switch operates at full switching bandwidth that reaches speeds of 4 Gb/s per port and up to 48 Gb/s of aggregate bandwidth.

Complete switch configuration and management is available through the intuitive, graphical-based Web Manager interface. A variety of network configurations are easily established using the switch’s Port Smart Settings, One-Step Zoning, Automatic Trunking, and Load Balancing features. In addition, the switch features granular change notification management, retained system configuration parameters, and a Command Line Interface (CLI) for advanced users.

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PART NUMBER 00041407-002 REV. B