SAN48B-5 Fibre Channel switches

The FC switches support the cluster traffic between the AC3 control enclosure pairs. For some configurations, they also support the flash traffic to the AE2 storage enclosures.

The SAN48B-5 FC switch is configured with 24 of 48 ports enabled. For larger configurations, the remaining 24 ports can be enabled through licensing.

Although any supported switch can be used, the SAN48B-5 FC switch is suggested for best results.

FC switches are used for all scaled building blocks because:

• The port layout on the FC switches and the unit layout in the rack are designed so that scaling with additional building blocks is not disruptive to building blocks currently in use.
• Each of the FC switches can be used in their 24 port-enabled base configuration without the need for additional licensing, even with a single building block, or dual building blocks.

The number of switches that are required depends on the particular configuration planned. For example, for non-mirrored configurations, four FC switches are needed to create the private management LAN fabric if the AC3 control enclosures contain 8 Gbps host adapter cards. Two FC switches are needed if the AC3 control enclosures contain 16 Gbps host adapter cards.