As your SAN environments continue to grow in both size and functionality, you need flexible ways to make them more efficient, secure, and better aligned to your business requirements. Now, there's a simple, cost-effective way to get more value from your SANs while you continue to utilize your regular security, scalability, zoning, and management practices.
Available in Brocade Fabric OS Version 5.2 and greater, the Brocade Virtual Fabrics feature enables you to logically partition a single physical Brocade SAN fabric into multiple logical fabrics. A Virtual Fabric is simply a collection of device ports that you want to manage separately from the rest of the SAN fabric (similar to Brocade Advanced Zoning). And, to help protect your existing SAN investments, the Virtual Fabrics feature is backward compatible with devices running Fabric OS 5.1 and below in predefined configurations.
Implementing Virtual Fabrics
The unique advantages of Virtual Fabrics apply to a wide range of scenarios, such as:
- Consolidating from two multiple-switch fabrics to two SAN directors with Virtual Fabrics for each business function
- Providing storage resources for remote offices without duplicating physical infrastructure or compromising local SAN security
- Sharing an existing SAN fabric among multiple customers or business units
- Dividing SAN administrative responsibilities among individual employees for security reasons
When you are ready to implement Virtual Fabrics, the process is intuitive and straightforward, and you can do so without changing physical network topology or disrupting your business operations. The first step is to define Administrative Domains by using a time-saving graphical wizard tool or the standard Brocade command line interface.
Administrative Domains enable you to reassign applications, data, devices, or operating systems into separately managed logical groups for improved hardware utilization or consolidation. After you have deployed Administrative Domains, you can manage them through Brocade Web Tools 5.2.0 and Brocade Fabric Manager 5.2.0.
The Key Benefits of Virtual Fabrics
Virtual Fabrics are designed to facilitate more efficient SAN operations, especially in regard to improved security, resource sharing, and consolidation.
By partitioning a single physical fabric into multiple logical ones, Virtual Fabrics help ensure that a fault or administrative error in one virtual environment will not affect applications sharing the same physical infrastructure. This capability addresses security and compliance concerns driven by internal service level requirements and external regulations.
Likewise, isolated business units might need access to a shared storage infrastructure for basic economic as well as operational needs. In this case, Virtual Fabrics enable you to define isolated storage networks that contain shared devices without incremental cost and management complexity. Sharing infrastructure between isolated SAN fabrics leverages existing investments to save money, and no additional hardware or software licenses are required.
Virtual Fabrics can also play a role in reducing your data center's power and cooling requirements. By deploying Virtual Fabrics to improve port utilization in conjunction with power-efficient solutions such as the Brocade 48000 Director, you can magnify the benefits of consolidation and resource sharing.
