Section 3. Xsan Topologies
There are numerous ways for you to implement your new SAN.
The following three examples show typical topologies for production environments. Again, these are guides, intended to provide a summary of the previously discussed information as you plan and acquire your equipment for integration.
Topology Example 1
In this example, we are using the most basic of topologies. We have a total of 3.9 TBs of storage utilizing a fully populated RAID. The SANs bandwidth availability with one fully populated Xserve RAID is 160–200 megabytes per second (MB/s). This SAN is isolated; that is, the system is not connected to an outer network. This is perfect for implementations in which highly confidential content is being edited. Also, we are not utilizing a centralized directory, so clients will be locally authenticated (the server will not be in control of the login process), and the "chatter" on the metadata network will be kept to a minimum. In order to access and setup either the Fibre Channel switch or the Xserve RAID, an additional connection must be made from a separate computer outside the network.
Storage
- 1 x Xserve RAID 5.6TB (fully populated with 400GB Drive Modules)
- 512MB Cache Per Controller (1 GB total)
Fibre Channel Switch
- 1 x Apple qualified Fibre Channel switch
Metadata Controllers
- Xserve, Xserve G5, or Xserve G5 cluster node
- 1GB 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)
Metadata Network
- 1 x unmanaged Gigabit Ethernet Switch
Client Workstations
- Power Macintosh G5 or Power Macintosh G4 Dual 800 or faster.
- Apple Fibre Channel PCI-X card
- Mac OS X v10.3.6 or later
- Apple Xsan software