EVA 5000 - Switch Upgrade Path

[Gianni_12]

Hi, we have a EVA 5000, witch VCS 3.028 with 14 hosts attached to it. They are a mix of Windows 2003 Servers, OpenVMS 7.3-2 and Solaris 10 Servers. We have two Brocade 3850 switches. They are almost full.

What would it be the right way to increase the numbers of ports? Replace the two 16 ports switches with two 32 ports switches, hoping that we can do a trade-in?

Or just buy two more 3850 (16 ports) and connect them to our SAN?

Tks for your help.

Gianni

[Jim Carter_1]

Personally I'd take a serious look at the newer 4/64 switches in their baseline configuration with 32 ports active. There are several advantages to this solution: 1) you get the newer 4 Gb technology, 2) you get an immediate solution to you full port situation, and 3) you have two more upgrade steps you can execute (16 ports each) before you hit the maximum number of active ports on these switches.

Also, there is no reason not to mix the new 4Gb swtiches in your current SAN since they autorange from 1 to 4 Gb.

When you start looking at the revenue involved, I suspect you will find that the new 4/64 baselines are pretty competitive with the older 3850 technology (when you consider not just this step, but also your next).

[Steven Clementi]

You can expand either way. If you get another 16 prt switch, you end up with a total port count of 30 ports per fabric.

If you upgrade to a 32 o even a 64 port switch, you then have full access to all the ports.

My suggestions is that if you know you will not need any more ports then an extra 14, perhaps a 2/16 is the way to go... but if you see yourself expanding more in the futue, I would definitely consider getting the infrastructure now and replacing with a larger switch like the 4/64.


Steven

[Prasanth B]

Hi,

Apart from the points already mentioned, replacing the switches with higher capacity switches will improe the managemability of the environment. Less complex, less problems, less headache. If you are planning to add 2*16 ports, I would rather connect them directly to EVA using additional host ports rather than linking them through the existing ones as it will give you better performance.

-PB

[Muthyala]

Hi

We had four numbers of 8 port Switches in a single zone. Recently i added two more 8 port switches to this zone. I just made sure that all switches are having same version of Firmware/OS on them. And just added these two switches to the zone it worked fine. Make sure the new SAN switches does not any zone configurations on them and also make sure of Domain ID should be unique.
Thanks
Sri

[Paul Henderson_2]

To minimize downtime and keep using your already purchased 3850's, I'd add an 8 port 3250, making it a "core" switch. Then you'd link the two existing switches to the 3250, and also link in an additional new 3850.

Now you'd have a central core switch which links your three 16 port 3850s. This is a pretty clean approach that provides a lot of room for expansion (you can link in 5 more 16 port switches in the future, adding 15 ports at a time (one subtracted for the uplink)).

The cost of the 3250s and 3850s are coming down a lot, and deals can be had.

Assuming you don't want to go to 4Gb fiber, which would mean scrapping all your switches, buying the new 3x50s would utilize your current investment and allow for an easy expansion.

[Mike Naime]

Paul, You just linked his redundant fabrics! not a good thing to do.

If your main concern is cost, then the lower switch port count wil be the path that you follow. If you do that, add at least 2 ISL's between the old switch and the new switch. Also consider moving 1/2 of your storage ports to the new switch. This will potentially reduce the amount of traffic across the ISL's.

If you are really concerned about performance and scalability, then the 4/64 is the way to go. then you do not have to worry about over-subscribing your ISL ports.

Mike

[Paul Henderson_2]

Oh yeah, that redundancy thing. I should have gleaned from the port count that that is what he is doing. Thanks for catching that!

[Gianni_12]

Hi! Thanks you all for your recomendations and help. I think we will go with the least expensive option and get two new 16 ports switches.

I got one more question regarding this:

Our current two switches model is: "HP SAN Switch 2/16 PP". I thinks this refers to the power pack bundle.

Should we get the new two 4/16 switches with only "full fabric support" or with "full fabric support + the Power Pack Bundle?"

Can someone explain me the main diffence between these two? The power pack bundle adds like 5.4K to each switch.

Tks

Gianni

[Stephen Kebbell]

Hi,

PowerPack includes extra features like ISL Trunking, Fabric Watch, Advanced Performance Monitor and Extended Fabric (for very long distances [>10km] between switches)
You should decide if you need these features (ISL Trunking is nice to have, but only if you are pushing lots of data between these switches).

If not, then just the Full Fabric support should be adequate for your needs.

Regards,
Stephen