Connectivity Options available for 2 sites

Question

What is the best way to connect 2 Sans together tht are about 800 metres apart, within the same physical building (hosptal) for the purposes of replication.

Have the following:

Site 1 has 2 Silkworm 24000 switches with a Clariion attached an a few hosts.

Site 2 has 2 Brocade 200E's again with a Clariion and some hosts attached.

I want to replicate from 1 Clariion to the other, and have a resilient network.
Each site has 2 fabrics configured, how many more should i configure ?
Should I buy any additional switches, Directors or just connect the existing switches together ?

sfuhrman · Answer

There is no single correct answer as you could accomplish what you need to do in several different ways. Since your distance is only 800 meters, the cheapest and most simplistic route would be to get some longwave optics and merge the fabrics so you would end up with a total of two fabrics for redundancy.

If this is not an option, you could obtain two Brocade 7500's and route between fabrics.

But, if you are able to merge the fabrics and have (or can run) single-mode fiber between the switches, then simply run some ISLs and merge the fabrics.

aprior6 · Answer

---Message was edited by: EmcAdmin

faisalchoudry · Answer

so the 2 options could be for example:Option11)Using ISL connect Switch1 (Fabric1) at site1, to Switch1 (Fabric1) at Site2(extend the Fabric so still only one Fabric at end of process).Again using ISL connect Switch2 (Fabric2) at site1, to Switch2 (Fabric2) at site2.again extend this Fabric across the 2 sites.Option2This one I'm not too sure of:Get 2 Brocade 7500's and then put 1 at each site ? Then route each site through these. Would I be using a protocol like iFCP or FCIP for example with this solution ?Also if i did this would it be better to put 2 X 7500's at each site (so total 4 Brocade 7500's) for redundancy as this is supposed to be a DR setup ?Or do you think that's just too complicated for this sort of distance.Also if i have 2 fabrics currently at each site, at the end do I still have 2 fabrics at each site, so total of 4 fabrics ?Thanks alot for your helpMessage was edited by: emcadmin

andreas.scht · Answer

to Option2:Brocade 7500 only supports routing by using FCIP or native FC.I will advise FC for routing.You have to configure the routing Ports to EX ports or to VEX ports by using FCIP. And then adapt your zones. No practical experience by myself. But we will use 7500 for DR in a couple of months.You are right that there are two single points of failure one for each site.But option 2 is expensive because 7500 only sold full equipped-> 16FC Ports. And you have to change SFPs to Long-Wavelength Laser because distance is greater then 500meters.e.g. SUNs official US price is about 60.000$ (see homepage http://www.sun.com/storagetek/storage_networking/routers/brocade_7500/index.xml)

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Connectivity Options available for 2 sites

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