topic Enable or not multi-initiator mode on SAS Blade switch? in BladeSystem - General

Enable or not multi-initiator mode on SAS Blade switch?

biokovo_1 — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 17:19:29 GMT

We have c3000 enclosure with 3 BL460c G6 servers and 3G SAS switch. External storage is MSA2324sa with 3 vdisks (volumes)in RAID10. Each BL server should have access to his own volume.
In advanced option of SAS switch there is option to enable multi-iniator mode, but with warning.
Is it ok to enable this mode in this configuration?

Thanks

Re: Enable or not multi-initiator mode on SAS Blade switch?

JKytsi — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 04:07:44 GMT

I think your scenario is single initiator-single target. So multi-initiator mode has no advantages.

In SAS "fabric" it is recommended to use single initiator zones.

Re: Enable or not multi-initiator mode on SAS Blade switch?

biokovo_1 — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 10:35:48 GMT

But than I can assign only one host to one zone?! I create one (switch-port mode) zone and put the swith ports connected on MSA in that zone. Do I need assign that zone to blade servers?

Thanks

Re: Enable or not multi-initiator mode on SAS Blade switch?

Michael Bunker — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 07:10:02 GMT

The multi-initiator mode specifies that you want the VSM GUI to allow you to assign more than 1 Smart Array controller to the shared storage target. It's normal to enable this mode when using shared storage. You would then use SMU to map vdisk volumes to individual controllers.

Multi-initiator mode is off by default as a safety precaution to prevent users from assigning more than 1 Smart Array controller to a disk drive, which is the case when the MDS600 is attached.

Another way of thinking about this mode setting is enable=shared storage & disable=direct attached storage.