Help! Brocades and McData
 

Hey guys/gals,

I know very little about SANs but have been asked to find information
on the web about which is the better overall switch: The Brocade
Silkworm 3900 or the McData 3232? All I can find are marketing blurbs
and very little about the technical merits of each device. Which do
you guys prefer and why? Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Also,
any URLs you may have regarding specifics about performance testing,
etc. on these devices are appreciated.

-TIA
Jeff

Personally I prefer Cisco, but that's a different story....

Out of those 2 the answer, as always, is it depends.

McData is fantastic at passing packets, doing it quickly, and doing it
consistantly. That's it, move data fast and reliably.

Brocade has a good record as well but not as good as McData. But one
thing they have McData does not is a roadmap that actually sees things
get to reality. They are progressing when it comes to new technology
like fabric based services among others.

McData's roadmap today looks frighteningly similar to the one of 3
years ago. Not much has changed. But then again, they were good at
packet passing back then too.

Hope this helps.

~F

On 15 Oct 2003 07:58:09 -0700, (Jeff Specoli) wrote:

Hey guys/gals,

I know very little about SANs but have been asked to find information
on the web about which is the better overall switch: The Brocade
Silkworm 3900 or the McData 3232? All I can find are marketing blurbs
and very little about the technical merits of each device. Which do
you guys prefer and why? Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Also,
any URLs you may have regarding specifics about performance testing,
etc. on these devices are appreciated.

-TIA
Jeff

Personally, Brocade is better from a secure fabric standpoint.

StorExpert
Triadstorage.com

"Jeff Specoli" wrote in message
om...
Hey guys/gals,

I know very little about SANs but have been asked to find information
on the web about which is the better overall switch: The Brocade
Silkworm 3900 or the McData 3232? All I can find are marketing blurbs
and very little about the technical merits of each device. Which do
you guys prefer and why? Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Also,
any URLs you may have regarding specifics about performance testing,
etc. on these devices are appreciated.

-TIA
Jeff

On 15 Oct 2003 07:58:09 -0700, (Jeff Specoli) wrote:

Hey guys/gals,

I know very little about SANs but have been asked to find information
on the web about which is the better overall switch: The Brocade
Silkworm 3900 or the McData 3232? All I can find are marketing blurbs
and very little about the technical merits of each device. Which do
you guys prefer and why? Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Also,
any URLs you may have regarding specifics about performance testing,
etc. on these devices are appreciated.

-TIA
Jeff

Here's a rag that was posted a while ago:

On 22 Sep 2003 12:59:01 -0700, (NYCeyes) wrote:

Hi:

This is not strictly a Sun/Solaris question, but
many talented people tuned in have good information
to share, so I included the group.

Price aside, given a choice between a Brocade-3900
and a McData Sperion(ES)-3232, which would you go
with and why. To help you answer, know that two of
these will straddle the ends of a 91km DWDM connection,
so Buffer Credits are an important consideration.
I have calculated the required amount to be about
62 at 2Gbps and a payload of 2Kbytes.

Are there any other preferences that you like or
dislike as well?

The question is which HBA are you going to use. If you are thinking
qlogic, then do not use the Brocade switch due to RSCNs. Otherwise, the
products are comparable.

If you will be growing into a larger SAN later, then I'd stick with the
Mcdata, again. The Mcdata core switch is better. If you use Mcdata core, obviously
it's better to have Mcdata edge switches.

Boll Weevil

Hi, Boll,
Could you elabrate a bit more about why Brocade should be avoided due to its
RSCNs?
Thanks
-Yi

"Boll Weevil" wrote in message
...
On 15 Oct 2003 07:58:09 -0700, (Jeff Specoli) wrote:

Hey guys/gals,

I know very little about SANs but have been asked to find information
on the web about which is the better overall switch: The Brocade
Silkworm 3900 or the McData 3232? All I can find are marketing blurbs
and very little about the technical merits of each device. Which do
you guys prefer and why? Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Also,
any URLs you may have regarding specifics about performance testing,
etc. on these devices are appreciated.

-TIA
Jeff

Here's a rag that was posted a while ago:

On 22 Sep 2003 12:59:01 -0700, (NYCeyes) wrote:

Hi:

This is not strictly a Sun/Solaris question, but
many talented people tuned in have good information
to share, so I included the group.

Price aside, given a choice between a Brocade-3900
and a McData Sperion(ES)-3232, which would you go
with and why. To help you answer, know that two of
these will straddle the ends of a 91km DWDM connection,
so Buffer Credits are an important consideration.
I have calculated the required amount to be about
62 at 2Gbps and a payload of 2Kbytes.

Are there any other preferences that you like or
dislike as well?

The question is which HBA are you going to use. If you are thinking
qlogic, then do not use the Brocade switch due to RSCNs. Otherwise, the
products are comparable.

If you will be growing into a larger SAN later, then I'd stick with the
Mcdata, again. The Mcdata core switch is better. If you use Mcdata core,
obviously
it's better to have Mcdata edge switches.

Boll Weevil

On Sun, 19 Oct 2003 22:54:47 -0700, "Yi Lin" wrote:

Hi, Boll,
Could you elabrate a bit more about why Brocade should be avoided due to its
RSCNs?
Thanks
-Yi



In the past post a person named Rene posted nice a RSCN description:

Hi,

Registered State Change Notifications (RSCNs) can theoretically
interrupt fc traffic of members of the same zone. RSCNs can be sent if
one HBA connects to the internal switch name server - in fact there
are HBA drivers outsite that allows to disable that feature. Anyway,
the most easy way to stop RSCNs impact on other host is to follow one
golden rule: Never ever build zones with more than one HBA inside.

please read :

http://cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/p...eets_list.html

and

http://cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/p...pers_list.html

(Jeff Specoli) wrote in message . com...
Hey guys/gals,

I know very little about SANs but have been asked to find information
on the web about which is the better overall switch: The Brocade
Silkworm 3900 or the McData 3232? All I can find are marketing blurbs
and very little about the technical merits of each device. Which do
you guys prefer and why? Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Also,
any URLs you may have regarding specifics about performance testing,
etc. on these devices are appreciated.

-TIA
Jeff

Come on, most of the guys here even know that Cisco
build san switches. I'd appreciate if you do other things
with your advertising budget.

René

"ccie_san" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
om...
please read :


http://cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/p...eets_list.html

and


http://cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/p...pers_list.html

(Jeff Specoli) wrote in message
. com...
Hey guys/gals,

I know very little about SANs but have been asked to find information
on the web about which is the better overall switch: The Brocade
Silkworm 3900 or the McData 3232? All I can find are marketing blurbs
and very little about the technical merits of each device. Which do
you guys prefer and why? Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Also,
any URLs you may have regarding specifics about performance testing,
etc. on these devices are appreciated.

-TIA
Jeff