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 x 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 x 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 x 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.