Brocade's Fabric OS

[ponetguy2]

Hello Everyone,

I'm trying to come up with a price list to get a quote for a Brocade 200E. The switch without anything is priced roughly around $5,000, which is okay. However, trunking license and Farbric OS can bump up the price to $15,000.

Do I really need Fabric OS? Is there another alternative to hardware trunking on the fabric layer? I'm trying to keep the cost down for the switch, so if anyone has any suggestions, please advise.

Thank you,

ponetguy2

"Not all OSs suck, it's just that some OSs suck worse than others"

 

[comtec17]

Fabric-OS is part of the switch and is licensed with it. You do not need a trunking license unless you plan on connecting multiple ISL's between switches and you want to great a large pipe.

 

[ponetguy2]

don't i need ISL trunking for redundancy?

i was planning on purchasing two switches, and two arrays w/ two controllers. each controller connected to a host.

"Not all OSs suck, it's just that some OSs suck worse than others"

 

[mbourne2006]

If redundancy is your goal, then you can use the 2 switches to create a dual-fabric solution; this would absolutely *not* require an ISL.

With dual fabric, each participant node (whether storage or server) has at least 1 connection to both fabrics. In your case, it sounds like this would mean 1 connection to both switches. In this way, you are covered against the loss of a single controller, switch, HBA, or cable.

Are you planning to use 2 disk arrays in a redundant configuration? Or will your storage be spread across the 2 arrays?

HTH

Kind Regards,
Matthew Bourne
"Find a job you love and never do a day's work in your life.

 

[comtec17]

As Matthew states above, a redundant fabric is made up of two independent switches.

Say for example you have your storage array with 2 service processors each with 2 ports. You would connect 1 port from each service processor to each switch and then take the other ports and connect them to opposite switches.

Same for your hosts, HBA1 in switch 1 and HBA2 in switch 2.

 

[Chacalinc]

Do I really need Fabric OS?

Are you really talking about Fabric-OS? isn't it Frabirc Manager? they are different product and Fabric-OS *is included* with the switch (the OS itself), Fabric Manager is licensed as another product and you must pay for that.

If you are talking about Fabric Manager, then you don't need it.

Cheers.

Chacal, Inc.

 

[ponetguy2]

thank you for the great advise. i will scratch off ISL Trunking feature for Brocade on my list.

sorry for the long posts.

Here is a list of products we are planning on purchasing:

Host Layer:

(2x) Sun V490 with, 4 x 1.5 GHz, 16 GB Memory, 2 x 146 GB HD (10,000 RPM)

(4x) SG-XPCI1FC-QF4 Sun 4 GB PCI 1 Port Network Adapter

Fiber Layer:

(2) BR-210E Brocade Silkworm 210E, with E-port, 16 Ports 4 Gb (8 active ports), 8 x SFPs,
#XBR-R000070 Rack-mount Installation Kit for SilkWorm Switches
($340), 1 year Brocade Support ($1,000), RU 1

(8) X9733A LC to LC 5 Meter Cables (2 GB cables)


Array Layer:

(2) Sun 3510 FC Array with, 2 Hardware Controllers, 12 x 300 GB HD (15,000 RPM),
2 AC, 2 PS, Rack-Ready, RU 2

On the Host Layer, I'm planning on mirroring across two arrays. I'm not sure
if we will use Veritas or Solaris Volume Manager to accomplish this. Our Oracle DBAs
want to mirror the arrays using Oracle. Both host will be a part of
Oracle ASM (Oracle clustering software). In addition to mirroring, we will have two
HBAs per hosts. Each HBA on the host is connected to a independent switch and each switch
is connected to a array. As a mentioned prior, each array are mirrored to each other.

Please forgive me, but I'm not familiar with the multipathing technology. Do I still need
this on both hosts with this setup?

If anyone as more recommendations, please feel free to voice your opinion. Since I'm a
newbie with SAN, I will truly appreciate any suggestions.

"Not all OSs suck, it's just that some OSs suck worse than others"

 

[ponetguy2]

hello chacalinc. i'm talking about fabric os which comes with the switch. thank you for your input.

"Not all OSs suck, it's just that some OSs suck worse than others"