Virtual Connect - Fibre Channel (VCFC) connectivity

[chuckk281]

Avi had a Fibre Channel connectivity question:

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Hi all,

Is it supported to connect 2 ports from each VCFC  to two  different Cisco Mds switched ?

Port 1 from VCFC 1 connected to Mds1, port 2 from VCFC1 connected to Mds2.

Port 1 from VCFC2 connected to  Mds1, port 2 from VCFC2 connected to Mds2.

If this  supported ,  what’s the benefit  ?

Thanks

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We had a lot of responses:

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From Alexander: 

As I know it is not supported. Even in VCM you can make fabric only on each VC FC module, so if it will be connected to two different switches status will be degraded.

From Vincent: 

If a VC *fabric* has uplinks going to different switches, it will show up as degraded. But you can define 2 fabrics on each module, each with one uplink to its own MDS, and it will be fine. As to the benefits of doing this, I can’t really think of any.

From Cullen: 

Note that a single HBA port can only connect to one fabric.  Creating two fabrics in the VC FC module would mean that some of the servers could connect to one and some to the other; none would connect to both.  This would be one way to manually balance the load on the two switches and ensure that the load stays balanced in case of a VC FC failure.  On the other hand, it provides no particular benefit over connecting both ports on each VC FC to the same switch.

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Other comments or input?