Topology Example 3
In this topology, ten clients share 15.9 TB of storage. The SAN's bandwidth availability with four fully populated Xserve RAIDs is a whopping 640–800 MBs. 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 inter-switch 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 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)
Ethernet Switch (Metadata network)
- 1 x unmanaged Ethernet Gigabit switch
Client Workstations
- Power Macintosh G5 or Power Macintosh G4 Dual 800 or faster
- Apple Fibre Channel 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.