Vixel Fabric Switch Architecture
Vixel's Fabric Switch Architecture provides the essential services to support enterprise fibre channel SAN implementations. These services include Fabric Switch Services, Stealth-3 Private Loop Switching, Scalability & Reliability, Zoning, and Management Services, all built upon a Frame Switched Crossbar Architecture.
| Fabric Switch Services
Fabric Log-in
Simpl,e Name Server
Registered State Change Notification (RSCN)
Fabric Address Notification (FAN)
IP over FC Broadcast Server
Public/Private Communications (Option)
Auto Sensing Ports
SW-2 FSPF Standard Fabric Compliant (v3.0) |
Scalability & Reliability
Cascading
Fault Tolerant Fabric Mesh
Multiple ISLs with auto-path failover |
Stealth-3 Private Loop Switching
ExpertMode – address assignment
LIP Zoning & Isolation
InstantLoop – Auto Sensing Ports |
Zoning
Port Zoning
World Wide Name Zoning (v3.1) |
Management Services
SAN InSite 2000 • SNMP • CLI/Telnet • Serial
Fibre Alliance MIB • Embedded Web Server |
Frame Switched Crossbar Architecture |
Fabric Services
Vixel's fabric services allow customers the ability to create a seamless storage area networking fabric which can meet the storage networking needs of any enterprise. Vixel fully supports ANSI T-11 SW1 fabric standards. Vixel 7100/7200 Fabric Switches support fabric login (FLOGI), Simple Name Server (SNS), Registered State Change Notification (RSCN), Fabric Address Notification (FAN), IP over Fibre Channel, Public Host/Private Storage (Translative) Communications, and auto-sensing ports. Vixel’s fabric switches are upgradeable to ANSI SW-2 FSPF fabric switch interoperability later this year, which will allow true multivendor switch routing and communications.
Click To View a Related White Paper: Fabric Services
Click To View a Related White Paper: Fibre Channel SAN Interoperability
Stealth-3™ Private Loop Switching
The Vixel 7100 8-port and 7200 16-port Fabric Switches incorporate the third generation of arbitrated private loop switching technology, Stealth-3, delivering the most extensive control and management of loop configuration in the industry. Stealth-3 offers superior configuration options and LIP isolation in comparison to competitors implementations. LIP Zoning™ provides LIP isolation and control to the individual port level. Competitor's lack of LIP isolation will seriously effect the performance of some tape backup and video applications. Automatic SAN configuration in minimum time through InstantLoop™ and the offering of transparent attachment to any fabric switch through FabricConnect™ give the user a wide range of tools to develop SAN solutions. Vixel also supports ExpertMode™, allowing hard coding of arbitrated loop physical addresses (ALPA’s) which is important in some loop switch based applications.
Click To View a Related White Paper: What is Loop Switching?
Scalability & Reliability
Vixel 7100/7200 Switches fully support fabric’s which scale to meet any enterprises SAN requirements. Every port on a Vixel switch supports inter-switch links (ISL’s) to other switches allowing the fabric to grow to meet any customers SAN requirements. Multiple ISL’s are supported between switches for high availability failover redundancy. High availability fault tolerant SANs are supported with the built-in support for meshing, cascading, or multi-stage SAN implementations.
Zoning
Vixel was first to market with port-based zoning and currently supports port-based zoning with zoning control at the individual port level. Port zoning provides maximum flexibility and is similar to Virtual Private Networking in LAN networks. Each switch port can have its own unique port zone definition and multiple overlapping zones are fully supported. Port-based Zoning provides the highest level of security with hardware enforcement. World-Wide Name (WWN) Zoning will be provided as a free upgrade in the near future as standards become agreed upon.
Click To View a Related White Paper: Zoning for Fibre Channel Fabrics
Click To View a Related White Paper: Dynamic Zoning for Arbitrated Loop
Management Services
Vixel’s innovative SAN InSite 2000 Management Software is the de-facto open-standard Storage Area Network (SAN) framework. It offers the most advanced management for today's SAN. SAN InSite 2000 eliminates barriers to SAN implementation by enabling IT managers to automatically discover, monitor, and manage multivendor SAN devices from a single, easy to use graphical user interface. SAN InSite 2000 comprehensive SAN network management which not only auto-discovers hubs, switches, routers and HBAs, but provides port-level management of all devices.
Vixel also fully supports switch management using SNMP, TELNET (CLI), and the serial communications port. Vixel fabric switches support the Fibre Alliance MIB version 2.2 which is the SAN industries standard for management MIBs. Firmware downloads are supported via simple TFTP firmware downloads. Vixel is the only vendor which offers dual firmware images. This provides the ability to upgrade firmware in advance of activation as well as hot standby of alternate firmware.
Click To View a Related White Paper: Managing Multivendor SANs with SAN InSite 2000
GBIC Support
Vixel fabric switches provide maximum media flexibility and "Pay as you grow" with GBIC ports at all available port connections. GBIC ports allow use of preferred media suppliers, optimize the solution with the best components including short-wave optical, long-wave optical, active or passive copper in HSSDC or DB-9 formats. GBIC ports offer maximum reliability and uptime as optical interfaces have the greatest failure rate in the interconnect. In SAN’s, a failure takes access to your applications data away, so reliability is mandatory.
Summary
Vixel delivers the best switches to build the foundation for high performance Storage Area Networks. With the ability to interface with hubs and full fabric switches and the upgrade paths to enhanced fabric, this series gives the best scalability for end users. Available in both an 8- and 16-port version with upgradeable configurations, Vixel switches are the best foundation for SAN applications. As the demand increases, Vixel switches can be scaled to meet the increasing needs. |
