High availability with built-in redundancy designed to avoid single points of failure
Highly scalable director with 16, 32 or 48 Fibre Channel (FC) ports per port switch blade and from 16 to 384 ports in a single domain
Multiprotocol router blade with sixteen FC ports and two Internet Protocol (IP) ports for SAN routing and distance extension over IP
iSCSI blade enables servers to access storage over IP (Ethernet)
10 Gbps Fibre Channel blade provides extended distance ISL connectivity between directors over dark fibre or DWDM
Fibre Channel switch blades support either 4, 2 and 1 Gbps link speeds or 8, 4 and 2 Gbps link speeds
Sixteen and thirty-two port switch blades support IBM FICON®
Interoperable with other IBM TotalStorage SAN b-type and m-type switches and directors
Offers advanced security with comprehensive policy-based security capabilities
Offers advanced fabric services such as end-to-end performance monitoring and fabric-wide health monitoring
The IBM TotalStorage® SAN256B is designed to provide outstanding performance, enhanced scalability and a design ready for high-performance 4 Gbps, 8 Gbps and 10 Gbps capable hardware and expanded capability features. The SAN256B is well suited to address enterprise SAN customer requirements for infrastructure simplification and improved business continuity.
The SAN256B director interoperates with other members of the IBM TotalStorage SAN b-type and m-type families. It can be configured with a wide range of highly scalable solutions that address demands for integrated IBM System z™ and open system server enterprise SANs.
Common features
Hardware summary
Designed for mid-range to enterprise-class SANs
Ideal as core-component in a core-to-edge SAN fabric
4 Gbps industry-standard Fibre Channel (FC) switch (requires storage system hardware that supports 4 Gbps throughput)
8, 4, 2 and 1 Gbps server and device interfaces with auto-sensing capability
Brocade® Fabric OS® is common across all members of the IBM TotalStorage SAN b-type family
Advanced Inter-Switch Link (ISL) Trunking, Load Balancing and Advanced Zoning
Web Tools, Fabric Watch, Hot Code Activation and Performance Monitor
Chassis includes two control processor blades plus space for one to eight port blades, dual power supplies and fans in a 14U rack height
Available 8 or 4 Gbps 16-port, 32-port and 48-port switch blades, 16-port FC/2-port IP routing blades and 8-port FC plus 8-port iSCSI blade, 6-port 10 Gbps FC ISL blades
Available 8 Gbps and 4 Gbps shortwave and longwave Small Form-factor Pluggable (SFP) optical transceivers
Available 10 Gbps XFPs support high-performance ISLs and distance extension requirements
Available copper GbE SFP for connection to Ethernet fabrics
Full Fabric Operation and Universal Port (E, F and FL port) operation
Many non-disruptive software upgrades and hot-swappable switch blades, power supplies and fans
Fabric Shortest Path First (FSPF) designed to reroute around failed links
