IBM Storage Networking SAN48C-6 Delivers Fast FC Connectivity for AFAs

IBM Storage Networking SAN48C-6 delivers high-speed FC connectivity for AFAs

IBM Storage Networking SAN48C-6 is a 32Gb/s 48-port FC switch that delivers high-speed FC connectivity for AFAs.

This switch offers analytics and telemetry capability built into its next-gen application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) platform.

It allows seamless transition to FC-NVMe workloads whenever available without hardware upgrade in the SAN.

It empowers small, midsize, and large enterprises that are rapidly deploying cloud-scale applications using extremely dense, virtualized servers to deliver greater bandwidth, scale, and consolidation.

The main benefits for a small-scale SAN include:

• Automatic zoning
• Nonblocking forwarding
• Smaller port groups of 16 ports

Benefits for a mid- to large-size SAN include:

• Higher scale for FC control-plane functions
• Virtual SANs
• Fabric login (FLOGI)
• Device alias and name server scale
• 48 ports of 32Gb/s non-oversubscribed line-rate ports
• Bidirectional airflow

Large-scale SAN architectures built with SAN core directors can expand 32Gb/s connectivity to the server rack using these switches in either switch mode or Network Port Virtualization (NPV) mode.

Additionally, the switch delivers a fixed-form FC-NVMe-ready SAN switch with enhanced buffer-to-buffer credits connecting both storage and host ports and FC link encryption. These switches also support enhanced diagnostic features such as Inter-Switch Link (ISL) and HBA diagnostics, read diagnostic parameter, link cable beacon, and reliability features such as forward error correction (FEC) with HBA ports.

Key requirements
SAN48C-6 supports FC connectivity. Model 8977-T48 supports all features and functions listed, and requires NX-OS software release 8.4(1), or later.

Planned availability date: July 26, 2019