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Newbie, whats a Director, and JBOD?
Hi,
I'm very new to the storage technology, and have been doing some readings to understand the basics of fiber channel technology. I'm stuck with these two basic terms: fiber channel director, and JBOD, what are they? when do you use a director as opposed to a switch? Will appreciate if you could forward a link to any resource that could help me. thanks, Ash |
#2
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hello
I suggust you visit www.sanacademy.com and www.dothill.com also www.snia.org has a storage dictionary. A JBOD _ Just a bunch of disks this is an external disk chassis (that means no RAId controller) they can be in SCSI, FIBRE or IDE to SCSI/Fibre Ususlly connected to a PCI Raid controller by can often be just connected to a HBA a Director is a lot more complicated and if you dont know when to use a director over a switch you need to do some serious research. a good guide line is the amount fibre connections you need. However if your this new to storage it is unlikley that you will be thrown into the world of directors - Currently switches come in 8/12/24/32 ports directors start at 64 Ash wrote in message . .. Hi, I'm very new to the storage technology, and have been doing some readings to understand the basics of fiber channel technology. I'm stuck with these two basic terms: fiber channel director, and JBOD, what are they? when do you use a director as opposed to a switch? Will appreciate if you could forward a link to any resource that could help me. thanks, Ash |
#3
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AlanY wrote:
a Director is a lot more complicated and if you dont know when to use a director over a switch you need to do some serious research. a good guide line is the amount fibre connections you need. However if your this new to storage it is unlikley that you will be thrown into the world of directors - Currently switches come in 8/12/24/32 ports directors start at 64 Wouldn't a good rule of thumb be that if you need to connect edge devices such as JBODs, tapes or hosts, you need an FC switch. If you need to connect switches to each other to create a fibre backbone or a large fabric, you'll need a director ? Usually directors don't support anything but point-to-point because they are designed as core fabric switches connecting to other switches, so devices like JBODs (which traditionally require arbitrated loop) can't even be connected to directors. Arne |
#4
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On Wed, 29 Oct 2003 08:24:08 -0700, Arne Joris wrote:
AlanY wrote: Wouldn't a good rule of thumb be that if you need to connect edge devices such as JBODs, tapes or hosts, you need an FC switch. If you need to connect switches to each other to create a fibre backbone or a large fabric, you'll need a director ? Usually directors don't support anything but point-to-point because they are designed as core fabric switches connecting to other switches, so devices like JBODs (which traditionally require arbitrated loop) can't even be connected to directors. Arne In general you are correct. Directors are also called edge switches, usually packed with routing capabilities that will route FC traffic to an IP network (or to and from any other form transportation) to another director switch that does the reverse. This way you aren't confined to a single technology. I've noticed the industry moving away from using the term "director". Note to the OP, many folks will refer to any disk chasis as a JBOD, namely those that have been around storage for a while. Alan gave you the correct definition of a JBOD, but don't be caught off gaurd if someone refers to something else as a JBOD even though they are inherantly incorrect. - Jake |
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