IBM 2498-R06-SAN06B-R-45 4/24 x Ports Fibre Channel 8Gb/s SAN Switch

Product Description

The IBM 2498-R06-SAN06B-R-45 is a robust Fibre Channel (FC) switch engineered to form the backbone of enterprise-level Storage Area Networks (SANs). It facilitates high-speed, reliable communication between servers and storage arrays, ensuring optimal performance for critical business applications that rely on direct access to data. The switch supports the 8Gb/s Fibre Channel standard, providing significant bandwidth to handle demanding I/O operations and large data transfers efficiently. This model offers a flexible port configuration, indicated by '4/24 x Ports', suggesting it can be deployed with a base number of ports that can be expanded up to a maximum of 24. This scalability allows organizations to start with their current needs and grow their SAN infrastructure as required, without needing to replace the entire switch. The architecture is designed to provide non-blocking performance, meaning that the full bandwidth is available to all ports simultaneously, preventing bottlenecks and ensuring consistent access to storage resources. As a SAN switch, the IBM 2498-R06-SAN06B-R-45 is built for high availability and reliability, crucial characteristics for storage environments where downtime can have severe consequences. It typically incorporates features such as redundant power supplies and hot-swappable components (depending on the specific configuration) to maintain continuous operation. The rack-mountable design ensures it can be easily integrated into standard data center racks alongside servers and storage hardware, simplifying deployment and management within a consolidated infrastructure.