3Par 10400 StoreServ Host Connectivity

[rianui]

Hi Gurus,

I am seeking clarification regarding host connectivity on this storage. I am currently doing the installation. The storage has four disk cages all cabled up. I also have two cables running from each node to the SAN switches and a third one meant for replication. That leaves me with five free ports on each node. This will work okay as is but there is a contention that all cables need to be connected for better throughput. Are there any other effects of not having all cables connected at the moment other than congestion and is that even noticeable?

Regards,

Rianui

[Sheldon Smith]

The HP 3PAR StoreServ 10000 storage arrays have a variable number of host ports. Normally, each controller node has at least one 4-port FC card, with slots to expand up to a total of six cards per node. We will start with the assumption of one card. Additional cards and their ports can be configured as needed.

Current HP Best Practices recommend a maximum of four ports per server (two ports on each fabric). The even-numbered ports all connect to one fabric, the odd-numbered ports to the other. So initially we can assume 16 total ports, eight on each fabric.

Given the recommended ordering of the FC ports, we wind up with four sets of FC ports:

1. 0:2:1, 1:2:1, 0:2:2, 1:2:2
2. 2:2:1, 3:2:1, 2:2:2, 3:2:2
3. 0:1:3, 1:1:3, 0:1:4, 1:1:4
4. 2:1:3, 3:1:3, 2:1:4, 3:1:4

Distribute the servers evenly across the FC port sets. Each server should have its own two zones, one per fabric with the two ports of that port set in the zone. In addition, each port should have no more than 64 servers zoned to it, or, no more than 32 hypervisor servers (VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V).

Note: While I work for HP, all of my comments (whether noted or not), are my own and are not any official representation of the company.

----------

If my post was useful, click on my KUDOS! "White Star" !