3 ā Planning
Multiple Chassis Fabrics
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3.5.4
Common Topologies
The SANbox 5600 Series switch supports the following topologies using the
1/2/4-Gbps Fibre Channel ports:
ī Cascade
ī Mesh
ī MultistageĀ®
3.5.4.1
Cascade Topology
A cascade topology describes a fabric in which the switches are connected in
series. If you connect the last switch back to the first switch, you create a
cascade-with-a-loop topology as shown in Figure 3-4. The loop reduces latency
because any switch can route traffic in the shortest direction to any switch in the
loop. The loop also provides failover should a switch fail.
Using 16-port model 5600 switches, the cascade fabric shown in Figure 3-4 has
the following characteristics:
ī Each chassis link contributes up to 212 MB of bandwidth between chassis,
425 MB in full duplex. However, because of the sequential structure, that
bandwidth will be shared by traffic between devices on other chassis.
ī Latency between any two ports is no more than two chassis hops.
ī 48 1/2/4-Gbps Fibre Channel ports are available for devices.
Figure 3-4. Cascade-with-a-Loop Topology
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