Replacing a 24 port Mcdata switch w/ Cisco

jim_berlow · ‎03-12-2008

I hope that you guys can help me. I'm looking to replace our aging 24 port McData switch with a Cisco switch (in particular the 9134).

I have just a couple questions. The 9134 says that it is "stackable". Since I will need growth up to 32 ports immediately, I need to know what equipment is necessary to stack two of these units? Do I need a stacking cable like what is used in data network switches?

Please help me. Other than 2 9134's, the SFPs, and the licensing - is there anything else that I need to order?

Thanks,

Jim

inch · ‎03-12-2008

G'day Jim,

Good to see you are tossing that old mcdata! Anyway, these are "stacked" using the 2x10gb ports.

I do have one question however, are you going to be running dual fabrics?

Cheers

Andrew

jim_berlow · ‎03-12-2008

Thanks for your reply, Andrew. I apologize that I'm not sure what you mean (my own igonorance there). I imagine this has to do with fabric redundancy within the chassis (if so then YES).

I basically need to provide for about 36 FC ports and just thought that connecting 2 MDS 9134's seemed the most cost-effective solution.

Thanks again for your help!

inch · ‎03-13-2008

Hi Jim,

It is generally best practice to have two physically separate switch fabrics as its quite disastrous if you lose access to your disk subsystem.

I would first check to see if the sysadmin's plan to have multipath access to the 'san'. If so, how many hosts, disk arrays and tape libraries will be connected?

This might double your port count or mean you don't need to join the two switches together :)

Cheers

Andrew