IBM SAN32M-2 - Manual (Page 4)

online help. Whether you have a single
switch or a small fabric to manage,
EFCM Basic capabilities and functional-
ity can help simplify management of
your SAN solution.
Pay-as-you-grow scalability
The FlexPort Expansion feature is
designed to support scalable switch
upgrades. The FlexPort feature provides
an activation key and eight shortwave
SFPs which upgrade the switch in
eight-port increments while helping
avoid fabric disruption. The ability to
increase switch capacity while maintain-
ing service helps customers implement
a pay-as-you-grow strategy while mini-
mizing impact to applications.
High performance
The SAN32M-2 switch provides 4 Gbps
performance on all ports when paired
with storage system hardware that sup-
ports 4 Gbps throughput. Each port
auto-negotiates to 4, 2 Gbps or
1 Gbps, full duplex, depending on the
capabilities of the attached device or
switch. Up to 256 Gbps aggregate
throughput is possible with 32-port
configurations.
Network performance can be enhanced
with the Open Trunking feature which
automatically balances performance
throughout a network while helping
minimize storage administrators’
involvement. Open Trunking is designed
to optimize the total throughput
between two switches automatically by
redirecting traffic from high-utilization
links to links with available bandwidth.
Open Trunking is designed to continu-
ously monitor loads on all links, detect
congestion and automatically balance
traffic across available ISLs without
operator interaction. Based on constant
traffic monitoring, Open Trunking acts
to help improve throughput and reroute
traffic efficiently.
High-availability
Medium-sized and enterprise busi-
nesses require high-availability switch
fabric solutions. The SAN32M-2 fabric
switch uses advanced application-
specific integrated circuits (ASICs) to
help minimize the number of internal
components and thus improve reliability.
The SAN32M-2 switch is designed to
provide hot-swappable, load-sharing
dual power supplies designed to allow
the switch to remain online if one power
supply fails. Dual power cords allow
attachment to separate power sources
to help improve availability. Hot-
swappable power supplies with inte-
grated cooling components help elimi-
nate downtime for service when
replacing a failed component and help
reduce or eliminate the risk of erro-
neously cabling a replacement switch
because of a simple component failure.
Failed power supplies require IBM serv-
ice or switch replacement and hot-
pluggable optical transceivers can be
replaced without taking the switch
offline.
FlexPort technology is designed to
support switch port upgrades without
fabric disruption. In addition, HotCAT
online code activation is designed to
allow firmware to be downloaded and
activated while the fabric switch
remains operational. Redundant
switches can be deployed for high-
availability clustering applications.