Direct Attach FC vs. 2x Dell EMC DS-6505B Connectrix Switches

Hello experts and good day,

I have been asked to validate the hardware infrastructure described below for use with a new small VMware vSphere 6.5 deployment, described below:

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- 1x Dell EMC VNXe1600 Dual SP enclosure with Fibre Channel front-end ports

- 2x Cisco UCS C220 M4 SFF Rack Server hosts each running VMware vSphere 6.5. Each host will be equipped with 1x Emulex LPe16002 Dual-Port 16Gb Fibre Channel HBAs

- 1x Cisco UCS C240 M4 LFF Rack Server running Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Standard Edition. This server will also be equipped with 1x Emulex LPe16002 Dual-Port 16Gb Fibre Channel HBA. We will use this server as a physical Windows host in order to perform backup and restore from Dell EMC VNXe storage snapshots using Veeam Backup & Replication

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Can someone please confirm we can do Direct Attach FC with the Dell EMC VNXe1600 using one optional 8Gb Fibre Channel I/O module per each Dell EMC VNXe1600 SP and the pros and cons of doing Direct Attach FC instead of doing switching for this environment using 2x Dell EMC DS-6505B Connectrix Switches ?

Based on my understanding:

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- doing Direct Attach FC is the least expensive way to create the interconnect in a small environment since no Connectrix Switches are required

- doing Direct Attach FC with the Dell EMC VNXe1600 using one optional Fibre Channel I/O module per each Dell EMC VNXe1600 will downgrade Fibre Channel 8Gb

- doing Direct Attach FC will result in a less expandable deployment since each of the optional Fibre Channel I/O modules only provides 4 8Gb Fibre Channel ports

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Am I missing something here?

Don't get me wrong, I'm just trying to find out whether the customer really has to spend more money and purchase 2x Dell EMC DS-6505B Connectrix Switches and if the benefits of 2x Dell EMC DS-6505B Connectrix Switches are worth it for this environment.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks and Regards,

Massimiliano