IBM 43W6725 Network Switch Module Networking

The QLogic 20-port and 10-port 4 Gb SAN Switch Modules enable high performance 4 Gb Fibre Channel SAN solutions, and allow IBM BladeCenter integration with any open-standards-based storage area networks utilizing full fabric switching functionality. These two switches have almost the same features and functions except for the number of activated ports: the 10-port switch has ten activated ports, and the 20-port switch has 20 activated ports.

The QLogic 20-port and 10-port 4 Gb SAN Switch Modules enable high performance 4 Gb Fibre Channel SAN solutions, and allow IBM BladeCenter integration with any open-standards-based storage area networks utilizing full fabric switching functionality. These two switches have almost the same features and functions except for the number of activated ports: the 10-port switch has 10 activated ports and the 20-port switch has 20 activated ports.

Features

The QLogic 4 Gb SAN Switch Modules have the following features:
- Six external autosensing (1, 2, or 4 Gbps) Fibre Channel ports that operate at a maximum of 4 Gbps
- 14 internal Fibre Channel ports that operate at a maximum of 4 Gbps
- Two internal full-duplex 100 Mbps Ethernet interfaces
- External ports that can be configured as F_ports (fabric ports), FL_ports (fabric loop ports), or E_ports (expansion ports)
- Internal ports that are configured as F_ports at 2 Gbps or 4 Gbps
- Power-on diagnostics and status reporting
- Fabric security for controlling management access (optional feature)
- Support for Non-Disruptive Code Load Activation (NDCLA)
- Registered State Change Notification (RSCN)
- Support for standards-based FC-SW2 interoperability
- Error detection
- Frame bundling
- Configurable Fabric Address Notification (FAN)
- Support for up to 239 switches depending on configuration

The following software features come with the switch module:
- QuickTools Web interface
- 20-port licensing (20-port version only)
- 10-port licensing (10-port version only)

The switch supports the following fabric management (all management connections go through the management module):
- Management methods:
- Web interface through QuickTools
- Command-line interface (CLI) through Telnet program
- Enterprise Fabric Suite 2007 application (for customers that already use this tool)
- Switch simple network management protocol (SNMP) agent: enables a network management workstation to receive configuration values, traffic information, and Fibre Channel failure data through SNMP and the Ethernet interface

For the QLogic 10-Port 4 Gb SAN Switch Module, the default port license assignments are 1 through 7 for internal ports (the first seven blade bays), and 0, 15, and 16 for external ports (the first three external ports - see Figure 4). Port license assignments can be changed to other available internal ports (8 through 14) or external ports (17, 18, or 19) by using the QLogic management tools.