Conference netcad::hub_mgnt

2458.0. "Need comments on getting more than 6 Ethernet channels" by ZPOVC::HWCHOY (On a foul day, you can complain forever.) Sun Jul 02 1995 23:41

    I'm running into problems with the 6xEthernet FlexiChannel limit a
    whole lot lately. With modules like the PORTswitch now available,
    customer wants to build PORTswitch/PEswitch pairs to pump groups of
    workstations into the FDDI channels.
    
    I now have a config where I need to wire 60 SUN SPARCstations to access
    two SPARCservers each with 50GB storage acting as NFS servers. The
    DEChub 900MS is configured with a DECswitch 900EF, DECconcentrator
    900MX, PORTswitch 900TP x 2. Each PORTswitch group would map to a
    flexichannel into a DECswitch 900EF port, but we needed more than the 6
    Ethernet channels in the backplane.
    
    What I have decided to do now is do add a PEswitch 900TX, this will map
    its bezel Ethernet ports to the FDDI flexichannel. One PORTswitch 900TP
    will be mapped through the Ethernet flexichannels to the DECswitch
    900EF. The second PORTswitch 900TP will be organised as six independent
    groups, and will not be mapped into any flexichannels. Each group will
    sacrifice 1 port to be wired to the PEswitch bezel ports. Since there
    is only 26 (32-6) active device I should be OK with the PEswitch's
    64-entry address table. In this way I would be able to get 12 Ethernet
    channels into the FDDI ring.
    
    I'd welcome any comments and caveats on this config. Also I'd like to
    have the horse's mouth version of why we can only support 6 Ethernet
    channels, and the plans in place to address that. Looks like if this
    config is OK I'll have to use this quite a bit in the near future. :(
    
    
    Rgds,
    hw