Device Overview

The IBM SAN18B-6 offers the following features and capabilities:

  • Four logical Extension tunnels with combined maximum bandwidth of 2.5Gb/s to allow for scalable connectivity between sites.
    • The switch does not support FCIP connectivity to the SAN06B-R or FX8-24 blade because connections to these products are incompatible.
    • The switch does support FCIP connectivity to the IBM Models (IBM Storage Networking SAN42B-R and FCs 3892, 3893).
  • Hybrid mode only. This mode enables FCIP and IP Extension traffic to traverse through the tunnels.
  • Extension trunking. This feature allows multiple IP source and destination address pairs (defined as circuits) using multiple 1/10GbE interfaces to provide high-bandwidth Extension tunnel and lossless failover resiliency. In addition, each circuit supports the following QoS classes as individual TCP connections:
    • Class-F
    • FC-High
    • FC-Medium
    • FC-Low Priority
    • IPEXT-High
    • IPEXT-Medium
    • IPEXT-Low Priority
  • ARL enforces a minimum bandwidth guarantee for each circuit and permits adaptive utilization up to a set maximum bandwidth level. ARL optimizes network utilization of available bandwidth.
  • Software-based compression to deliver higher throughput over lower bandwidth links in the wide area network, optimizing the cost efficiencies of Extension. The SAN18B-6 compresses FC frames and IP datagrams before they are encapsulated into Extension batches and transported across the WAN.
  • Key protocol features that optimize performance of Extension over IP networks include WAN Optimized TCP (WO-TCP), 9K jumbo frames, and end-to-end Path MTU (PMTU) auto-discovery.
  • Hardware-based IPsec supporting a mixture of secure and nonsecure tunnels on the same Ethernet port, jumbo frames, and VLAN-tagged connections. The SAN18B-6 IPsec function is capable of supporting both IPv4 and IPv6.
  • FastWrite and Open Systems Tape Pipelining (OSTP) to mitigate the latency effect of a long-distance Extension connection over an IP WAN.
  • A built-in WAN link tester (WTool) that generates traffic over an IP connection to test for maximum throughput, congestion, loss percentage, out-of-order delivery, latency, and other network conditions. This tester helps determine the health of a WAN link before deploying it for use.
  • NVMe and VMOSAN traffic types.
  • REST APIs for configuration and monitoring.
  • Fiber Channel Routing (FCR) on FC ports, such as EX_Ports.
  • Fabric Vision advanced monitoring to provide the following functions:
    • Policy-based monitoring for Extension connectivity and WAN anomalies using multilayer metrics.
    • Flow monitoring that reports IOPS and the data rate of individual I/O flows of inter-DC replication and tape backup operations.
    • Flow generator that generates FC frames for a defined flow with a default or a customized size and pattern. These frames are sent across an Extension tunnel to help validate end-to-end network setup and configuration.