Virtual Connect Flex-10 Fiber Channel and P2000 (FormallyMSA2000)

[chuckk281]

Chris had a storage and Virtual Connect question:

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Hello,

Would it be plausible to connect the P2000 FC model directly to Flex-10 FC modules without a SAN switch in between the two?

This would be for a lab environment where a full FC SAN fabric is not accessible.  Customer still wants inexpensive FC storage for the C7000.

Any gotchas to be aware of?  Thank you in advance.

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Simple reply from Hiro:

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Hi Chris,

No, you can’t...

You have to connect VC-FC to NPIV enabled SAN switch.

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And more input from Kiran:

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Hi Chris,

Other than what Hiroyuko-san has mentioned below, another requirement as per the Virtual Connect User Guide is that the SAN switch should be capable of "Booting from SAN".

You also have mentioned that you would want a low cost Storage. Since you have proposed a P2000 FC storage, why don't you look at a P2000 iSCSI storage otherwise? With this proposal, you can achieve three things:

a) Attach HP ProCurve External switch. Pls note that you need to have an external LAN switch to connect to VC Flex-10. Also the P2000 will connect to this external LAN switch, enabling storage through iSCSI.

b) This might work out to be a relatively low cost solution and you can have DACs, SFP+ modules or CX4 connectivity between the VC-Flex-10 and the ProCurve Switch. The other cool thing with the latest generation P2000 model is that there is also a 10G connectivity!
This will also provide you with the flexibility of a price/performance for the complete solution stack.

c) End-to-End HP stack

I will otherwise, allow others to jump in and correct me if I am wrong and if there are more cheaper solutions available.

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Are you using this solution? Any best practices or experiences you can share?