Analyze the practical application of fiber channel switches

In daily use, the core-level equipment of the Fiber Channel switch can play a very important role in the SAN storage process, which not only affects the network performance, fiber Channel switches provide Fiber Channel switching for high-bandwidth and Low-latency data communication.

Currently, fiber channel switches provide connectionless services (Class2 and 3 ). An optical fiber switch is directly connected using an optical fiber network route. It uses routing software to directly connect the initiator and target, so that all the bandwidth of the optical fiber can be exclusive.

This means that each connection in the optical fiber can exist independently and does not interfere with other connections. The number of ports of an optical fiber switch ranges from 8 to 64, or even more, including SMART switching hardware, so that any two points of all ports of the switch can be connected. Fiber switches can be stacked through E_Ports. This method can extend the fiber network to thousands of nodes, and the number of switch stacks can reach up to 239.

A large SAN is implemented by connecting multiple switches in a mesh network. Each vswitch has a one-way connection to other vswitches in the network. In the example, the vswitch has 16 ports. As the number of switches in the network increases.

The percentage of ports used for connection between vswitches increases. This is one of the reasons why the FC switch port is expensive. In a mesh SAN core network consisting of six switches with a total of 96 ports, there are 30 vswitches and 66 user ports.

Vswitches greatly improve the performance of optical fiber networks, such as name services, management services, and more complete device connection protocols. Vswitches are used in most environments as a complete mechanism to provide host-to-array connections, especially in multi-device and multi-boot environments.

Fiber Channel switches are at the core of SAN storage architecture. The fiber channel switch is logically the core of SAN and connects hosts and storage devices. Fabric infrastructure can be seen as the foundation of SAN. When a device sends a frame of data to the switch, the switch routes the frame to the target device.

In fact, a frame can be forwarded before it is fully received. Fiber Channel switches are also intelligent. They can provide various Fabric services, including services for locating other nodes on the Network (simple name service). They can automatically establish routes with other switches in Fabric, you can also partition devices to monitor and handle errors.

Entry-level fiber channel switches are mainly used in small working groups with 8 to 16 ports. They are suitable for low-price scenarios with little need for expansion and management. They are often used instead of hubs to provide higher bandwidth and more reliable connections than hubs.

Generally, entry-level switches are not purchased separately, but are often purchased together with other vswitches to form a complete storage solution. Entry-level switches provide limited port cascade capabilities. Users may encounter some manageability problems when using such low-end devices separately.

Fiber switches provide the ability to cascade many switches into a large-scale Fabric. By connecting one or more ports of two vswitches, all ports connected to the vswitch can see a unique network image, any node on this Fabric can communicate with other nodes.

Essentially, through cascade switches, a large, virtual, and distributed switch can be created, and the distance between them can be very large. Fabric built on multiple vswitches looks like a Fabric composed of independent vswitches.

The ports on all vswitches can view and access all other ports on Fabric just like accessing a local vswitch. The unified name server and management service allows you to view and modify all Fabric information through a separate interface. An important factor in creating a distributed Fabric is to obtain the bandwidth of connections between switches.

The effective rate between any two ports is affected by the valid bandwidth of the switch connection. You may need to use connections between multiple switches to maintain the necessary bandwidth. The Working Group has a large number of fiber channel switches and is more common.

You can use workgroup switches in multiple ways, but the most widely used field is small-sized SAN. This type of switch can be connected by the interconnection lines between the switches to provide more ports. The interconnection lines between switches can be created on any port on the fiber channel switch. However, if you plan to use products from multiple vendors, you must ensure that the devices are interoperable.

As the main connection device of the LAN, the Ethernet switch is one of the fastest-growing network devices. With the continuous development of switching technology, the price of Ethernet switches decreases sharply, and switching to the desktop is the trend of the times. If you have a large number of users, busy applications, and a variety of servers on the Ethernet.

And you have not made any adjustments to the network structure, the performance of the entire network may be very low. One solution is to add a 10/100 Mbps switch over Ethernet. It can not only process 10 Mbps of conventional Ethernet data streams, but also support Mbps of Fast Ethernet connections.

If the network usage exceeds 40% and the collision rate exceeds 10%, the switch can help you solve some problems. Vswitches with Mbps Fast Ethernet and 10 Mbps Ethernet ports can run in full duplex mode and can establish dedicated 20 Mbps to Mbps connections.

Not only do vswitches have different roles in different network environments, but the impact of adding new vswitches and adding switch ports of existing vswitches on the network is also different in the same network environment. Fully understanding and understanding the network traffic mode is a very important factor in determining whether fiber channel switches can play a role.

Because the purpose of using a vswitch is to minimize and filter data traffic in the network, if a vswitch in the network needs to forward almost all received packets due to improper installation location settings, instead of optimizing network performance, a vswitch reduces data transmission speeds and increases network latency.

In addition to the installation location, if you blindly add vswitches in networks with low load and low Information volume, it may also have a negative impact. It is affected by the data packet processing time, the buffer size of the switch, and the need to regenerate new data packets.

In this case, a simple HUB is more ideal than a vswitch. Therefore, we cannot always think that a vswitch has an advantage over a HUB, especially when the user's network is not crowded and there is still a lot of available space, using the HUB can make full use of the existing resources of the network.

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