IBM System Storage b-Type 16Gb FC Switches and Directors

The IBM System Storage b-type 16 Gb FC switches and directors are the purpose-built network infrastructure for storage, delivering unmatched reliability and simplicity, with 16Gb performance.

SAN768B-2

Fabric Vision technology, an extension of Gen 5 FC, delivers a hardware and software diagnostic, monitoring, and management solution for high-density server virtualization, cloud architectures, and next-generation storage deployments.

Highlights of Fabric Vision technology include:

• Helping storage administrators avoid problems, maximize performance, and reduce costs through diagnostic, monitoring, and management capabilities
• Providing visibility into flows in the fabric, including automatic flow discovery and nondisruptive monitoring of flow performance
• Identifying congestion and abnormal levels of latency in the fabric instantly, including the equipment impacted by bottlenecks
• Automating the deployment of threshold-based rules and policies for proactive monitoring and management, helping to reduce operational costs
• Validating the health, reliability, and performance of the network prior to and after deployment, helping to reduce downtime risk
• Displaying the overall health of the SAN through a customizable dashboard, pinpointing problems faster and enabling trend analysis
• Helping to reduce or eliminate the need for third-party monitoring, diagnostics, and test equipment through built-in flow monitoring, flow mirroring, and flow generator capabilities

Fabric Vision functionality is also available on the 8Gb platform when installed with FOS 7.2, and later.

The optional Fabric Vision license includes support for the new MAPS and Flow Vision features, along with enabling ClearLink (D_Port) functionality for Gen 5 FC platforms when connected to non-b-type devices. New Enterprise Bundle features on the b-type switches include Fabric Vision.

The System Storage b-type 16 Gbps Gen 5 switch now offers a 16Gb 25km ELW SFP+ transceiver feature which helps to increase performance and provide additional configuration options.

Key prerequisites
The new switch family supports FC connectivity for servers and storage. All features and functions listed require FOS level 7.2.0, and later, except FC 2886 which requires FOS 7.1.0, and later.

Planned availability date: December 13, 2013