Dell PowerVault 56F (16P Fibre Channel Switch) - Manual (Page 31)

support.dell.com PowerVault 56F 16-Port Fibre Channel Switch Topologies 2-1
This chapter discusses some key factors affecting fabric performance, including the
following:
Fabric elements
Sample fabric topologies
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Each fabric is unique and the elements that determine the fabric’s structure include:
Class of frames in the fabric
Type of host adapters connected to the fabric
Bandwidth requirements supported by the fabric
Topology of the switches in the fabric
Requirements for redundancy and fault tolerance
Regardless of the topology used, the switch’s extremely low message latency mini-
mizes fabric message handling time that results in a high-performance fabric.
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All Inter Switch Links (ISLs) have a default cost of 1000. The cost of a path between
any two switches in the fabric is the sum of the costs of all ISLs. The switches that
comprise the fabric always choose the lowest cost path through the fabric to forward
frames from the source switch to the destination switch.
When constructing a multiswitch configuration, called a cascaded fabric, a frame
entering the fabric may pass through eight switches before exiting the fabric. The
switch does not enforce the eight-switch limit. It is your responsibility to ensure
that the seven-hop limit is not exceeded. The uRouteShow command provides