EVA4400 and only 1 SAN Switch?

[Jesper Rex]

I have a small customer, that needs a small SAN Solution, for only a couple of servers.

They would like the functionality and perfromance of the HP EVA, but find the price above their budget limit.

We are thinking about offering the EVA 4400 and a single 8 port switch.

Do I need Zoning, in order for this to work?

[Víctor Cespón · Accepted solution]

Yes you always need zoning. Insolate each port from the others. One EVA port does not need to talk to the other EVA ports.

Of course the switch would be a single point of failure.

Regarding that customer, have you considered an MSA2000?

[krusty]

I'm not sure of your price point, but have you looked at the EVA4400 starter kit?

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/en/WF25a/12169-304616-304648-304648-304648-3664768.html

Also you can get the 4400 with embedded switches:

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/en/WF06b/12169-304616-304648-304648-304648-3664763-3936204-3936205.html

If you do go the single switch route, I would still implement zoning for additional port isolation.

Cheers,

Curt

[Torsten.]

Consider this: you need 4 ports for the array, 2 ports for each server, so you can connect the array and 2 servers to your 8 port switch - not that much.

[Mark...]

Hi,
Does it have to be fibre ??
HP also have the LeftHand Networks product as well which MAY provide the fuctionality that your customer requires.

Mark...

[Jesper Rex]

We have been looking at the starter kits.

The Customer needs 5TB of Data, and that means that the Starter kit will not be as economical.

I am trying to convince the customer, that the best option is the built in switches, and servers with Dual Channel HBA's and Dual Attached.

We are not considering the Lefthand SANS, as We don't have any inhouse expertice with that one. And External Support is a US$ 2000 plane ticket away....

And yes, I do know that We can only attach 2 servers to the 8 port switch, if We uses Dual Channel HBA's.

We are also considering to offer the extremely scraped model, and attaching the servers directly to the EVA, without any switches. But single attach servers or directly attached is very much against what I want to recommend and support.

[Víctor Cespón]

To study performance issues you need to capture data with EVAperf. EVA controllers, SAN Switches and HBAs are not usually the limit.
Unless you're using SSD on that EVA, the limit are the disks.

[Jesper Rex]

The customer decided to go with an MSA2000i