Fibre Channel Switches

Much like Ethernet switches, Fibre Channel switches must be used to connect all of your clients, controllers, and storage together. There are many types of Fibre Channel switches, and Apple has tested and approved a few of them for use with Xsan:

• Brocade SilkWorm 3200, 3250, 3800, 3850, 3900, and 12000 series

• QLogic SANbox 2-8, SANbox 2-16, SANbox 2-64, SANbox 5200, and SANbox 5202

• Emulex SAN Switch 355, 375, and 9200

• Cisco MDS 9120, 9140, 9216, 9506, and 9509

Each of these switches must be configured as open fabric, where each port sees every other port. In general, the default configuration of these switches will work with Xsan. If you need to reconfigure or verify the switch settings, you need to connect to the switch with your Macintosh via an Ethernet connection. From there, you can run either a standard browser to view the switch configuration or specialized Java applications built specifically for switch setup.

See Lesson 7 for more information on switch setup.