IBM RedBooks SAN24B-5 Product Manual

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IBM System Networking SAN24B-5 Switch

IBM Redbooks Product Guide

This IBM® Redbooks® Product Guide describes the IBM System Networking SAN24B-5 switch. The
SAN24B-5 is designed to provide outstanding price and performance value, combining flexibility,
simplicity, Gen 5 Fibre Channel technology, and enterprise-class functionality in an entry-level switch. The
SAN24B-5 is configurable in 12 or 24 ports and supports 2, 4, 8 or 16 Gbps speeds in an efficiently
designed 1U form factor. The base unit includes one (249824G/2498-X24) or two (2498-F24) integrated
power supplies and fans. A second power supply provides additional redundancy for increased resiliency.

SAN24B-5 provides a critical building block for today’s highly virtualized, private cloud storage
environments. It simplifies server virtualization and virtual desktop infrastructure management while
meeting the high-throughput demands of solid state disks. It can address demanding reliability, availability
and serviceability requirements to help minimize downtime to support mission-critical environments.

Figure 1 shows SAN24B-5.

Figure 1. IBM System Networking SAN24B-5 switch

Did you know?

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SAN24B-5 helps maximize resiliency with nondisruptive software upgrades and a redundant power
supply.

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Dynamic fabric provisioning, critical monitoring and advanced diagnostic features help streamline
development and troubleshooting.

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Ports-on-demand (PoD) capability allows you to scale from 12 to 24 ports.

IBM System Networking SAN24B-5 Switch 1

Key features

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The SAN24B-5 features advanced monitoring, diagnostics, reliability, availability, serviceability and
redundancy capabilities in an entry-level switch to maximize availability, optimize performance, and
simplify administration. Enterprise-class features include the following items:

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Critical diagnostic and monitoring capabilities to help ensure early problem detection and recovery

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Non-intrusive and nondisruptive monitoring on every port to provide a comprehensive end-to-end
view of the entire fabric

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Forward error correction to recover from bit errors in inter-switch links (ISLs), enhancing transmission
reliability and performance

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Additional buffers to overcome performance degradation and congestion due to buffer credit loss

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Real-time bandwidth consumption by hosts and applications on ISLs to easily identify hot spots and
potential network congestion

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A second power supply to enable dual power redundancy and enhance availability

Architecture and key components

The SAN24B-5 delivers industry-leading Gen 5 Fibre Channel technology within a flexible, simple, and
easy-to-use solution. The base configuration includes 12 activated ports, with up to 24 ports on demand.
In addition to providing best-in-class scalability, the SAN24B-5 is easy to deploy with the EZSwitchSetup
wizard and the ClearLink diagnostic ports (D

Ports) feature, which simplifies setup.

The 24 ports produce an aggregate 384 Gbps full-duplex throughput; any eight ports can be trunked for
128 Gbps ISLs. Exchange-based dynamic path selection optimizes fabric-wide performance and load
balancing by automatically routing data to the most efficient and available path in the fabric, as shown in
Figure 2.

IBM System Networking SAN24B-5 Switch 2

Figure 2. Exchange-based dynamic path selection

SAN24B-5 augments ISL Trunking to provide more effective load balancing in certain configurations. It
provides a low total cost of ownership (TCO) because of its 12-port base configuration, easy
administration, 1U footprint and low-energy consumption, which is 0.22 watts per Gbps and 3.3 watts per
port.

The SAN24B-5 can be deployed as a full-fabric switch or as an access gateway, which simplifies fabric
topologies and heterogeneous fabric connectivity (the default mode setting is a switch). Access Gateway
Mode uses NPIV switch standards to present physical and virtual servers directly to the core of SAN
fabrics. This makes access gateway transparent to the SAN fabric, greatly reducing management of the
network edge. In Access Gateway Mode, the SAN24B-5 can connect servers to NPIV-enabled b-type,
m-type, and other SAN fabrics. Access Gateway Mode for the SAN24B-5 is supported only in 24-port
configurations.

Organizations can easily enable Access Gateway Mode through IBM Network Advisor v11, or later, or a
command-line interface. Key benefits of Access Gateway Mode are as follows:

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Improved scalability for large or rapidly growing server and virtual server environments

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Reduced management of the network edge, since access gateway does not have a domain identity
and appears transparent to the core fabric

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Support for heterogeneous SAN configurations without reduced functionality for server connectivity

IBM System Networking SAN24B-5 Switch 3

Accelerating fabric deployment with diagnostic ports

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ClearLink diagnostic ports (D
problems, reducing fabric deployment and diagnostic times. Organizations can also use D

Ports) enable administrators to quickly identify and isolate optics and cable

Ports to run a
variety of tests through the IBM Network Advisor or command-line interface (CLI) to test ports, small
form-factor pluggables and cables for faults, latency, and distance.

Simplifying server deployment with dynamic fabric provisioning

Dynamic fabric provisioning enables organizations to eliminate fabric reconfiguration when adding or
replacing servers through the virtualization of host worldwide names (WWNs). It also reduces or
eliminates the need to modify zoning or logical unit number masking, and also enabling preprovisioning of
virtual WWNs, helping organizations eliminate time-consuming steps when deploying new equipment or
moving devices within a switch.

Fabric operating system and management software

Fabric operating system (FOS), which is included with each SAN24B-5, contains all the functions
necessary to operate a base system. The SAN24B-5 Gen 5 Fibre Channel base systems require FOS
v7.0.1 or later to take advantage of the advanced functions delivered through Fabric Vision technology.
The ClearLink diagnostic port (D-port) supported in FOS v7.0 or later is designed to debug the
components associated with the link, such as transceivers and cables. This feature is supported only on
the 16 Gbps ports.

The Advanced Web Tools, Advanced Zoning, Full Fabric, and Enhanced Group Management are part of
the base FOS and do not require a license. When using FOS v7.2 or later you will have access to
additional base functions such as Server Application Optimization (SAO) and Adaptive Networking.

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Advanced Web Tools

software enables graphical user interface (GUI) based administration,

configuration, and maintenance of fabric switches and SANs.

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Advanced Zoning

software segments a fabric into virtual private SANs to restrict device

communication and apply certain policies only to members within the same zone.

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Full Fabric

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Enhanced Group Management

software allows switches to be connected, and is required to enable E_Ports.

enables additional device-level management functionality for IBM
b-type SAN products when added to the element management, and allows large consolidated
operations to groups of devices (such as firmware downloads and configuration uploads and
downloads).

Advanced capabilities can be enabled with the following optional license activation features:

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Adaptive networking service

is a set of features that provide users with tools and capabilities for
incorporating network policies to ensure optimal behavior of a large SAN. The FOS v7.0 release
supports two types of quality-of-service features with the 16 Gbps fabric backbones: ingress rate
limiting and SID/DID-based prioritization.

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Advanced Performance Monitor

helps identify end-to-end bandwidth used by host/target pairs and is

designed to provide for capacity planning.

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Fabric Watch

is designed to constantly monitor mission-critical switch operations for potential faults
and automatically alert administrators to problems before they become costly failures. Fabric Watch
includes the port fencing capability.

IBM System Networking SAN24B-5 Switch 4