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Preliminary
Multistage Topology
SANbox-16HA Fibre Channel Switch
5-12 Multi-Chassis Fabrics 59005-03 Rev. A Installer’s/User’s Manual
Multistage Topology
A Multistage Switch consists of chassis configured in two different Stage Types, an
Input-Output/Transfer (IO/T) stage type, and a Cross-Connect (CC) Stage Type.
Two or more chassis with the IO/T Stage Type supply user ports to connect to the
users, and T_Ports that connect to one or more chassis with the CC Stage Type. The
chassis with the CC Stage Type supply interconnections for the T_Ports. Any
SANbox chassis can function as an IO/T Stage Type or as a CC Stage Type. Switch
management allows you to designate the Stage Type of any chassis as IO/T or CC.
The default Stage Type for any chassis is IO/T.
T_Port Rules for SANbox IO/T Chassis
Any port on a SANbox-8 or 16 IO/T chassis may be a T_Port. T_Ports are used to
interconnect chassis and are not user ports. QLogic suggests that you not use more
than half of the ports on a chassis as T_Ports. Chassis numbers must be unique
among all IO/T chassis in a fabric. If there is a chassis number conflict, the switch
with the higher world wide name will be disabled. In addition, a Logged-In LED
on the switch with the lower world wide name will blink to indicate which port is
connected to the conflicting switch.
You must connect at least one T_Port on each IO/T chassis to each CC chassis.
T_Port Rules for SANbox Cross-Connect (CC) Chassis
All ports on a SANbox CC chassis are T_Ports. As T_Ports they are used to inter-
connect chassis and are not user ports. Chassis numbers must be unique among all
CC chassis in a fabric. If there is a chassis number conflict, the switch with the
higher world wide name will be disabled. In addition, a Logged-In LED on the
switch with the lower world wide name will blink to indicate which port is
connected to the conflicting switch. Each CC chassis must have at least one T_Port
connection from each IO/T chassis.
Multistage Fabric Size
SANbox-16 chassis connected in Multistage topology (All SANbox-16 chassis)
expand from three chassis to a maximum of 17 to 24 chassis (16 IO/T chassis and
one to eight CC chassis). This results in 128 to 240 user ports depending on the
number of T_Ports used to interconnect the chassis.
Multistage Latency
Latency between any two user ports on different chassis is three chassis hops
(counting the source and destination chassis).