Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switch Fabric Manager Software Configuration Guide, NX-OS 4.0 (OL-16598-01, June 2008)

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Nexus 5000 Series Switch Fabric Manager Software Configuration Guide
OL-16598-01
Chapter 15 Configuring and Managing VSANs
Information About VSANs
Figure 15-2 Example of Two VSANs
The four switches in this network are interconnected by VSAN trunk links that carry both VSAN 2 and
VSAN 7 traffic. You can configure a different inter-switch topology for each VSAN. In Figure 15-2, the
inter-switch topology is identical for VSAN 2 and VSAN 7.
Without VSANs, a network administrator would need separate switches and links for separate SANs. By
enabling VSANs, the same switches and links may be shared by multiple VSANs. VSANs allow SANs
to be built on port granularity instead of switch granularity. Figure 15-2 illustrates that a VSAN is a
group of hosts or storage devices that communicate with each other using a virtual topology defined on
the physical SAN.
The criteria for creating such groups differ based on the VSAN topology:
• VSANs can separate traffic based on the following requirements:
– Different customers in storage provider data centers
– Production or test in an enterprise network
– Low and high security requirements
– Backup traffic on separate VSANs
– Replicating data from user traffic
• VSANs can meet the needs of a particular department or application.
FC FC FC FC
H1
H3H2
AS1 AS2 AS3
SA1 SA2 SA3 SA4
Link in VSAN 2
Link in VSAN 7
Trunk link
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