ONTAP Discussions

Brocade/Twinax/AFF200/FAS2750

stuart_tormey
3,398 Views

Hope someone can point me in the right direction.

 

I have some brocade vdx6740 switches and currently it has fibre/transceivers implemented but due to cost  I want to swap to twinax. I'm planning on brocade active twinax cables to join the switches together. I am trying to find out about compatibility of using Brocade Twinax cables to connect to the NetApp AFF220 and FAS2750 units to the vdx6740 swotch. Does anyone have any information on this?

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

AlexDawson
3,348 Views

Hi there!

 

Unfortunately TwinAx is a giant mess, and we don't have too many options to fix it.

 

We only certify Cisco and NetApp branded TwinAx cables, and I know from personal experience that the VDX6740 does not support either of those.

 

While the Brocade TwinAx cables will work in many NetApp 10Gb adapters, it is not supported and is flagged as such.

 

This means - the supported option is to use optical.

 

Unsupported options include the twinax (DAC) cables with a different vendor ID on each end, otherwise known as dual coded DAC. Usually works fine, but not officially supported.

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4 REPLIES 4

SpindleNinja
3,363 Views

Are you planning on making these a 4 node cluster and using the brocade for a cluster switch?    Or is this just data access?  

stuart_tormey
3,275 Views

Spindle Ninja,

 

Tthese would just be for data access only, the cluster interconnect will be switchless and connect directly to each other.

SpindleNinja
3,257 Views

Was just wondering for clarfication.   But Alex has it down pretty good. 

 

Lastly have you been to the Hardware Universe?   https://hwu.netapp.com  

 

AlexDawson
3,349 Views

Hi there!

 

Unfortunately TwinAx is a giant mess, and we don't have too many options to fix it.

 

We only certify Cisco and NetApp branded TwinAx cables, and I know from personal experience that the VDX6740 does not support either of those.

 

While the Brocade TwinAx cables will work in many NetApp 10Gb adapters, it is not supported and is flagged as such.

 

This means - the supported option is to use optical.

 

Unsupported options include the twinax (DAC) cables with a different vendor ID on each end, otherwise known as dual coded DAC. Usually works fine, but not officially supported.

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