Fibre Channel SAN Extension over Optical Networks WAN Design Metrics
WAN Design Metrics
Questions to Ask
– Throughput and scalability:
• How many applications and channels? • How much growth, and how fast? • Supports channel aggregation?
– Distance requirements:
• How far and how fast? • How much latency is tolerable?
– Protocol support:
• FC, FICON, ESCON? • IP support?
– Existing infrastructure:
• Availability and cost of dark fiber for DWDM? • Existing SONET/SDH infrastructure?
– High availability requirements – Network management requirements
Throughput and scalability requirements: What level of throughput does each application require? How many applications must be supported? This will determine the number of channels that are required.
What is the expected growth in demand? Can the solution scale, and how cost-effective will it be when it has scaled? For DWDM, does the DWDM platform support channel aggregation?
Distance requirements: Distance can be a limiting factor for CWDM and DWDM. Latency increases with distance—how much latency can the application tolerate.
Does the latency have to be deterministic? Backup and DR applications require more consistent latency.