SECURING FIBRE CHANNEL FABRICS - Brocade

FC Fabric Features and ServicesSwitch DSwitch AABSwitch BSwitch FCSwitch CEDStorageFigure 9. Cascade topology (four and six switches shown)This is not a scalable design and offers little redundancy. A failure ofany switch with this topology would result in isolation of the devices oneither side of the failed switch.Ring TopologyA ring topology is created when every switch in a fabric is connected totwo other switches in the same fabric, as shown in Figure 17. A failureof any switch in this topology would still allow all other switches to continuecommunicating with each other using a path in the oppositedirection.This topology is also not very scalable since the number of hopsincreases as you add new switches, but it does provide some redundancywith the dual paths.Switch ASwitch FSwitch ESwitch BSwitch CSwitch DFigure 10. Ring topologyMesh TopologyThe full-mesh topology is created when every switch participating in afabric is connected to every other switch in the fabric, as shown inFigure 18. This provides the highest level of path redundancy andexcellent performance, since there is only one hop between any twoSecuring Fibre Channel Fabrics 37