Topology Example 3
In this topology, ten clients share 16 TB of storage. The SAN’s bandwidth availability with four semi-populated Xserve RAIDs is a whopping 640 to 800 MB/s. Because of the number of Fibre cables in this topology (32 total), an additional switch has been implemented. Data cascades effortlessly between the two switches because a high-bandwidth interswitch link (ISL) has been made with six user ports on each switch. Think of it as a data river that flows bidirectionally between each switch. A primary and a standby MDC are mandatory with such a large implementation. To keep their roles simple and efficient, the directory is implemented on the outer network.
Storage
- 4 × Xserve RAID 7 TB (populated with six 500 GB drive modules per controller; the seventh is a hot spare, not used in the storage calculation)
- 512 MB cache per controller (1 GB total)
Fibre Channel Switch
- 2 × Apple qualified Fibre Channel switch
Metadata Controllers
- Xserve, Xserve G5, or Xserve G5 cluster node
- 1 GB RAM per controller
- Apple Fibre Channel PCI-X card
- Mac OS X Server v10.3.6 or later
- Apple Xsan software
- PCI video card (optional)
Ethernet Switch (Metadata Network)
- 1 × unmanaged Ethernet gigabit switch
Client Workstations
- Power Macintosh G5 or Power Macintosh G4 Dual 800 or faster
- Apple Fibre Channel PCI Express or PCI-X card
- Apple Ethernet PCI-X card
- Mac OS X v10.3.6 or later
- Apple Xsan software
Outer Network
Mac OS X Server running Open Directory to provide directory services, or a system running a similar service such as Active Directory.