Difference between fabric and director switch.

[Fauzan_1]

What is the difference between fabric and director switch?

[Uwe Zessin · Accepted solution]

A "director" is a larger, fabric switch, maybe with some enhanced redundancy (power supplies, dual control processors). A "director" is usually more modular using blade-based expansion modules.

[krusty]

To add to what Uwe said - a "fabric" consists or one of more SAN switches. Most SANs are a "dual fabric" design so there is no SPOF (Single Point of Failure).

Cheers,

Curt

[Steven Clementi]

To add just a little bit more of what Uwe and Curt said...

An "Edge" switch is probably the term you were referring to vs. "fabric". (Even though these switches are all referred to as "fabirc" switches)

An Edge switch, though still somewhat redundant... is less "highly available" than a director class switch... usually not involving blade-based expansion, though still providing high performance.

Typical scenario might be..

8/24 <-->8/256<--between sites-->8/256<-->8/24

Where the 8/24 is a Brocade SAN Switch Interconnect in a c-Class Blade Enclosure, which connects to a director class Brocade Switch... which is some how connected to your DR site's director class Brocade Switch... connected to the 8/24 Interconnect on that side.


Steven

[krusty]

Ahh, yes. I think Steven is correct. I think he has the best answer for what you are looking for...

Curt

[Uwe Zessin]

That depends on how you read the question:
- "fabric (switch)" vs "director switch"
- "fabric (of multiple switches)" vs. "(a) director switch"

[jason andrade]

another answer might be:

a director switch costs a bazillion dollars and a non director switch might cost quite a bit less than that :-)

yes, directors are designed to scale much larger than 'traditional' edge switches and have power supplies, redundancy and a much larger backplane to allow this - as a result they tend to cost more, chew more power, need more space..

but if you have a requirement for a large number of ports, it's more efficient/less risky etc to use a director - think of all the ports you would lose trying to join up lots of 'edge' switches into one fabric that a pair of directors could provide for you.

-j