Brocade 3900 versus McData Sperion (ES) 3232...

[NYCeyes]

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?

TIA
Milton Vega
***@m-vega.com
Rensselaer Technology Group, LTD

[Boll Weevil]

Post by NYCeyes
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 anyone disputes me
on this go ahead, I won't respond). If you use Mcdata core, obviously
it's better to have Mcdata edge switches.

Boll Weevil

[Greg Guenther]

Post by Boll Weevil
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.

What is the exact problem with qlogic and brocade ?

Thanks !

Greg G

[r***@systematics-techsol.de]

Post by Greg Guenther

Post by Boll Weevil
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.

What is the exact problem with qlogic and brocade ?
Thanks !
Greg G

Hi,

Registered State Change Notifications (RSCNs) can theoretically
interrupt fc traffic of members of the same zone. RSCNs can be send 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.
I personally have build up approx. 30 SANs over the last 3 years
(Brocade, McData, Inrange) - ever following that rule, and have never
seen RSCN problems.

Rene

[NYCeyes]

Post by r***@systematics-techsol.de

Post by Greg Guenther

Post by Boll Weevil
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.

What is the exact problem with qlogic and brocade ?
Thanks !
Greg G

Hi,
Registered State Change Notifications (RSCNs) can theoretically
interrupt fc traffic of members of the same zone. RSCNs can be send 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.
I personally have build up approx. 30 SANs over the last 3 years
(Brocade, McData, Inrange) - ever following that rule, and have never
seen RSCN problems.
Rene

Btw... that same the golden rule I have followed for every SAN
I have built since 1999 (when I started with a McDada ED1032 switch
through EMC), and it was very good to point out.

Thank you for your collective responses and emails directly to me.

Regards,
Milton

[Mark]

I'm a fan of the McData's just because I find them easier to work with. I
like the nice simple GUI you get with the McDatas and that if you do have to
do something via CLI it's still fairly intuitive.

Mark

Post by NYCeyes
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?
TIA
Milton Vega
Rensselaer Technology Group, LTD