Front cover
IBM Storage Networking
SAN64B-6 Switch
Megan Gilge
Product Guide
IBM Storage Networking SAN64B-6 Switch
This IBM® Redbooks® product guide describes the IBM Storage Networking SAN64B-6
switch. Faced with explosive data growth, data centers need more input/output (IO) capacity
to accommodate massive amounts of data, applications, and workloads. In addition to this
surge in data, users expect applications to be available and accessible from anywhere, at any
time, on any device.
To meet these business demands, organizations need to deploy and scale up applications
quickly, moving to higher virtual machine densities, and deploying flash storage to help those
applications scale to support thousands of users. To realize the full benefits of these
architectures, organizations treat the network as a strategic part of a highly virtualized
environment to increase optimization and efficiency to support rapid scalability.
The SAN64B-6 switch is designed to meet the demands of hyper-scale virtualization, larger
cloud infrastructures, and growing flash-based storage environments by delivering
market-leading Gen 6 Fibre Channel technology and capabilities.
SAN64B-6 delivers unmatched 32/128 gigabits per second (Gbps) performance,
industry-leading port density, and built-in instrumentation to accelerate data access, drive
always-on business, and support data center consolidation in small to large-scale enterprise
infrastructures.
SAN64B-6 is built for maximum flexibility, scalability, and ease of use supporting “pay-as-you
grow” scalability from 24 to 64 ports, with 48 enhanced small-form-factor pluggable (SFP+)
and four Q-Flex ports, in an efficient 1U package.
Figure 1 shows the SAN64B-6 switch.
Figure 1 SAN64B-6 switch
Did you know?
The IBM SAN64B-6 switch provides the following benefits:
Meet demands of virtualization, cloud, and flash-based storage
Deliver market-leading Gen 6 Fibre Channel technology and capabilities
Provide scalability to support growth, demanding workloads, and data center consolidation
© Copyright IBM Corp. 2016. All rights reserved. ibm.com/redbooks 1
Product highlights
The IBM SAN64B-6 switch has the following highlights:
Provide high scalability in an ultra-dense, 1U, 64-port switch to support high-density server
virtualization, cloud architectures, and flash-based storage environments.
Increase performance for demanding workloads across 32 Gbps links. Shatter application
performance barriers with up to 100 million input/output operations per second (IOPS).
Enable “pay-as-you-grow” scalability for on-demand flexibility.
Detect degraded application performance with built-in device latency and IOPS metrics.
Optimize end-to-end performance and availability tuning with IO Insight and VM Insight
intelligence.
Product overview
The SAN64B-6 with Gen 6 Fibre Channel, Fabric Vision technology with IO Insight and VM
Insight delivers unmatched 32/128 Gbps performance for application acceleration,
industry-leading port density for data center consolidation, and built-in instrumentation for
deep network monitoring and diagnostics, all managed with a command-line interface (CLI),
b-type Advanced Web Tools, or with IBM Network Advisor.
Gen 6 Fibre Channel
Gen 6 Fibre Channel is the purpose-built network infrastructure for mission-critical storage,
delivering breakthrough performance, increased scalability, and operational stability. The
SAN64B-6 with Gen 6 Fibre Channel, Fabric Vision technology with IO Insight and VM Insight
delivers unmatched 32/128 Gbps performance, industry-leading port density, and built-in
instrumentation.
These next-generation storage networking technologies and capabilities enable the
SAN64B-6 to accelerate data access, adapt to evolving requirements, and drive always-on
business operations for hyper-scale virtualization, larger cloud infrastructures, and growing
flash-based storage environments.
Fabric Vision technology
Fabric Vision technology provides unprecedented insight and visibility across the storage
network with powerful built-in monitoring, management, and diagnostic tools that enable
organizations to complete the following tasks:
Simplify monitoring:
– Deploy more than 20 years of storage networking best practices in predefined,
threshold-based rules, actions, and policies with a single click
– Automatically detect degraded application and device performance with the industry’s
first built-in IO Insight device latency and IOPS metrics monitoring tool
– Gain comprehensive visibility into network health, performance, latency, and
congestion issues in the fabric, using browser-accessible dashboards with drill-down
capabilities
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Increase availability:
– Avoid 50% of common network problems with proactive monitoring and advanced
diagnostic tools that address problems before they impact operations
– Identify hot spots and automatically mitigate network problems (
application performance) through intuitive reporting, trend analysis, and integrated
actions
– Minimize downtime and accelerate troubleshooting with live monitoring, integrated
diagnostics, and point-in-time playback
Dramatically reduce costs:
– Eliminate nearly 50% of maintenance costs through automated testing and diagnostic
tools that validate the health, reliability, and performance of the network prior to
deployment
– Save up to millions of dollars on capital expenditure (CapEx) costs by eliminating the
need for expensive third-party tools through built-in monitoring and diagnostics
– Leverage specialized tools for pre-testing and validating IT infrastructure to accelerate
deployment, simplify support, and reduce operational costs
before they impact
Maximize performance for application and solid-state storage architectures
Faced with unpredictable virtualized workloads and growing flash storage environments,
organizations need to ensure that the network does not become the bottleneck. The
SAN64B-6 delivers increased performance for growing and dynamic workloads through a
combination of market-leading throughput and low latency across 32 Gbps and
128 Gbps links.
With Gen 6 application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) technology providing up to
566 million frames switched per second, the SAN64B-6 switch shatters application
performance barriers with up to 100 million IOPS to meet the demands of flash-based storage
workloads. At the same time, port-to-port latency is minimized to 700 nanoseconds (ns)
through the use of cut-through switching at 32 Gbps.
With 48 SFP+ ports and 4 Q-Flex ports, each providing four 32 Gbps connections, the
SAN64B-6 can scale up to 64 device ports for an aggregate throughput of 2 terabits per
second (Tbps). Moreover, each Q-Flex port is capable of 128 Gbps parallel Fibre Channel for
device or inter-switch link (ISL) connectivity, enabling administrators to consolidate and
simplify cabling infrastructure.
Administrators can achieve optimal bandwidth utilization, high availability, and load balancing
by combining up to eight ISLs in a 256 Gbps framed-based trunk. This can be achieved
through eight individual 32 Gbps SFP+ ports or two 4 × 32 Gbps quad small form-factor
pluggable (QSFP) ports.
In addition, exchange-based Dynamic Path Selection (DPS) optimizes fabric-wide
performance and load balancing by automatically routing data to the most efficient, available
path in the fabric. This augments b-type ISL Trunking to provide more effective load balancing
in certain configurations.
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Simplify scalability and management complexity
The SAN64B-6 features up to 64 Fibre Channel ports in an efficiently designed 1U form
factor, delivering industry-leading port density and space utilization for simplified scalability
and data center consolidation. With this high-density design, organizations can pack more
into a single data center with a smaller footprint, reducing costs and management complexity.
Designed for maximum flexibility and value, this enterprise-class switch offers
“pay-as-you-grow” scalability with Ports on Demand (PoD) capability. Organizations can
quickly, easily, and cost-effectively scale from 24 to 64 ports with a combination of 12-port
SFP+ PoD and 16-port Q-Flex PoD.
Each of the 48 SFP+ ports supports 4, 8, 10, 16, and 32 Gbps Fibre Channel speeds, while
each of the 4 Q-Flex ports is capable of supporting 4×32 Gbps, or 128 Gbps, Fibre Channel
speeds. In addition, Q-Flex ports are designed to support QSFP optics to deliver 4-to-1 cable
consolidation (combining four cables into one cable per port).
SAN64B-6 ports are available for device port or ISL port connectivity. As such, Q-Flex ports
can be used as ISLs to provide simple build-out of fabrics, with more switching bandwidth. In
addition, flexible, high-speed 32 Gbps and 16 Gbps optics allow organizations to deploy
bandwidth on demand to meet growing data center needs. With its flexible PoD capability, the
SAN64B-6 provides excellent overall value, and the agility needed to deliver rapid
deployments to meet user demands and support higher growth.
Along with providing best-in-class scalability, the SAN64B-6 simplifies end-to-end network
management by automating monitoring and diagnostics through Fabric Vision technology.
The switch is easy to deploy with the EZSwitchSetup wizard, and provides validation prior to
deployment with the ClearLink Diagnostic Ports (D_Ports) feature. For maximum flexibility, the
switch also features dual airflow direction options to support the latest hot aisle/cold aisle
configurations.
Gain control and insight to quickly identify problems and meet critical SLAs
The SAN64B-6, with Gen 6 technology and built-in instrumentation, helps organizations
achieve greater insight and control so that critical SLAs can be met.
IO Insight monitoring gathers IO statistics, including device latency and IOPS metrics, to
provide intelligence for early detection of application and device-level performance
degradations. If VM Insight capabilities are supported within the ecosystem along with IO
Insight, then individual virtual machine metrics can also be monitored.
Administrators can also use this information to configure policy-based monitoring and
alerting, and set thresholds in order to be alerted if there is a degradation of application or
device-level performance. They can then proactively monitor against SLAs, reduce time to
resolution, obtain crucial insight for troubleshooting, and take action to optimize end-to-end
performance to ensure the highest levels of availability.
IO Insight and VM Insight monitoring enables administrators to achieve the following goals:
Gain deep insights into the performance and availability across physical and virtual
infrastructures
Quickly identify issues and understand key performance, health, and utilization trends
Monitor application flows with no physical taps, no downtime, and no disruption
Ensure that the end-to-end storage infrastructure is tuned to optimize performance and
safeguard operational stability
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