2499-192: IBM System Storage SAN384B

The 2499-192 is the IBM System Storage SAN384B, an 8 Gbps Fibre Channel backbone that IBM pairs with the Brocade DCX-4S. IBM positions it as a mid-size enterprise fabric core or a large-enterprise edge and application engine, and it is the smaller companion to the SAN768B that IBM introduced in 2008.

The base model arrives in an 8U chassis with doors and holds two control processor blades, two core blades, dual power supplies, two blower fans, two vertical cable management combs, an exhaust duct kit and Fabric Operating System. Fibre Channel switch blades and transceivers are not part of the base, so the 16-, 32-, 48- or 64-port 8 Gbps blades are ordered separately and populated with optics. The 64-port blade, feature code 3864, runs at 2:1 oversubscription at 8 Gbps and takes reduced-width mSFP transceivers; IBM states it cannot share a chassis with the FCoE blade, feature code 3880.

The SAN384B needs Fabric OS v6.2.0 or later. That release makes the chassis Virtual Fabric capable, so one physical chassis can be split into two or more logical switches. Blades that use the Condor2 ASIC must use Brocade-branded SFPs, and only 2 GB Brocade-branded USB drives are supported in the USB port. Integrated Routing is a licensed feature that works on every FC port.

Two or three chassis can be tied together with inter-chassis links. Each SAN384B ICL port carries eight 8 Gbps FC connections and four ICLs give 256 Gbps; they need no SFPs or user ports, and three-chassis ICL needs FOS v6.3 or higher. For 16 Gbps fabrics IBM sells the SAN384B-2, machine type-model 2499-416, equivalent to the Brocade DCX 8510-4. The larger sibling is the 2499-384 SAN768B and a fixed 16 Gbps switch is the 2498-F48 SAN48B-5; more IBM storage hardware is on the IBM storage systems page.