Connecting two san switch in cascade

[WilliamSmith11]

Hi
I am planning to connect two San switch in cascade because the 2/16 san switch that I am using now only have one unused port and I am planning add four server more. So my less expensive solution is using a second 4/16 switch that I have.

My questions

How I do that ?
By connection one the unused port of the first san switch to a port of the new san switch and will appear the connection as E-port?

Do I need a special license?

Do I need some other change in the ports configuration for this purpose?

Can I connect the ports of the controllers (FP1 and FP2 of the EVA) to the new san switch online , of course one at a time?

Some care I must take?

Check health of the EVA, logs etc.

Thank you

W.S

[Richard Tengdin · Accepted solution]

You should be able to interconnect the two switches without any issues with the fabric hot. You should make sure the FOS on both switches are current, and that you have already set the Domain ID on the new switch to match your current standard. I would also set an IP address on the new switch so you can log in to either one directly.

If you are doing WWN-based zoning you will be able to move hosts and EVA ports easily. If you are doing port-based zoning you will have a lot more work.

I'd suggest you only move one EVA port to the new switch, not both. That way any you only have a maximum of 1 EVA port worth of traffic crossing the ISL and you won't have to worry as much about contention.

[Ivan Ferreira]

>>> How I do that ?
By connection one the unused port of the first san switch to a port of the new san switch and will appear the connection as E-port?

Yes, the ports must not be zoned, the switches must have different domain IDs and the switch that you will connect should have no configuration (cfgclear)

>> Do I need a special license?

Yes. you need at least two domain fabric license, you can check with licenseshow command.

>> Do I need some other change in the ports configuration for this purpose?

Normally not.

>> Can I connect the ports of the controllers (FP1 and FP2 of the EVA) to the new san switch online , of course one at a time?

Yes you could do that.

>> Some care I must take?

Ensure that if you use zoning, your zoning configuration is correct and planned for the new switch.

Ensure that the hosts are correctly connected to the switch by using the switchshow command.

[Ben Dehner]

As other described, this is, in general, a fairly simple operation. The big things are:

1) insure that the new switches have a different Domain ID than the existing switches.

2) insure that the new switches use the same PID format as the existing switches. Since you have new switches, the default setting should be 1, which is the recomended setting.

3) the new switches should have no configuration, zoning, or alias information on them. Once they mesh with the existing switches, they will inherit that config.

The worst possible -- albeit highly unlikely -- outcome is that the meshing will crash the original switches. Disconnect, reboot, and figure out what happened.

The most likely problem is that the two switches simply won't mesh. This, although still unlikely, would probably be because of a configuration mismatch of one of the items above.

Also, as for moving your EVA array, be careful with this. Certain systems, notably HP-UX, use the port ID (PID) for binding the LUNs. One component of the PID is the domain of the switch. If you move your EVA connection to a different port in your fabric (or a different switch), then attached HP-UX systems will see any attached LUNs as a "new" device, and the original LUNs as missing. You may need to do some reconfiguration around this. What to do and how depends on what volume manager you are using and whether you are using a pseudo-drive like SecurePath.

If you have attached MS-Windows systems, they would be fine; they don't use the PID. Other systems -- AIX, Sun -- I don't know.

[WilliamSmith11]

>>Then the ports of the new san switch will be seen as normal ports that can be zoned and saved in my actual switch configuration?

What means FOS?

When I do the licenseshow command what must show me the switch to be fine to cascade the switches?
F1SW1:admin> licenseshow
R9zQedQSRbSA0Rfs:
Web license
Zoning license
Fabric license
byQzS9ezbScFV0T4:
Ports on Demand license - additional 4 port upgrade
Ports on Demand license - additional 4 port upgrade.

[Uwe Zessin]

Zoning works fabric-wide - either WWN-based or Domain,Port-based. You make the change on one switch and it is propagated to all other switches in the fabric and saved there as well.

You don't (need to) include any ISL ports in the zones.

FOS = Fabric Operating System = the software that runs on the switch

> Fabric license

You're fine.

[breasoner]

This is a very informative thread, thanks to all who have provided advice.

I have an additional question: If I have 2 switches that are completely open (no zoning) can they still be cascaded or will this cause conflicts/connection problems?

[Luk Vandenbussche]

Take care that there are no connection on the switch on which you are going to change
the domain-id. Because changing the domain id will change the hw path of the devices connected

[MQutub]

Hi, i want to do the same thing....
How do i check and change the Domain ID on the switch?

[WilliamSmith11]

There is a simple way to check the domain ID
>just connect to the switch by the web browser using the admin count , the password , in the main page you will see the domain ID , by default is 1 .

To change the domain ID is necessary to disable the switch and change the domain, But you must consider if the redundance path are ok , because the switch will be disable and enable.

I wait this help .

William