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Re: VC-FC / MSA2312fc

 
lowray1975
Occasional Contributor

VC-FC / MSA2312fc

Hello everyone. First and foremost I apologize for starting yet another thread regarding this topic. Honestly I just have too much conflicting information and was hoping someone could shed some light on this situation. So thank you in advance!

We have a c7000 enclosure with redundant vc-enet and vc-fc (HP 4GB) interconnect cards. We also have a MSA2312fc that we would like to connect to the c7000 via the vc-fc cards.

According to the many messages I have read on HP forums, it is not possible to connect the MSA to the vc-fc interconnects. A fiber switch "in between" is necessary.

My doubt comes from a pre-sales support person from HP that said a fiber switch is not necessary. I cannot get the MSA to talk to the vc-fc at all - for the life of me.

So basically I'm hoping that someone can either confirm that a fiber switch is needed (and hopefully offer a recommendation) or not.

Thank you everyone!
5 REPLIES 5
MAH_2
Regular Advisor

Re: VC-FC / MSA2312fc

Hi,

I am also facing the same problem with EVA 4400. We have one Blade Virtual connect FC interconnect module.(8G,20port.) No SAN switches... How I can connect to the storage???
KAUSTAV BOSE
Occasional Advisor

Re: VC-FC / MSA2312fc

I have a similar problem with the P2000 G3. I have opened a ticket with ITRC and was informed that a FC switch is required between VC-FC and the P2000.

The HP sales engineer did not mention about using a FC switch in this configuration.

Does a SAN Fabric automatically imply that a FC switch is being used?
Steven Clementi
Honored Contributor

Re: VC-FC / MSA2312fc

Sorry guys, the short story is...

The Virtual Connect Fibre Channel Interconnect is NOT a Fibre Switch.

It does not operate like a wide open switch (like an unconfigured Ethernet VC module) and pass any traffic. There is no name server on it, no zoning... it's just... not a Fibre Switch.

My suggestion... would be an 8port switch if you don't have the need for more external ports. The b-Series 8/32 or even the h-Series switches should work just fine.


Steven
Steven Clementi
HP Master ASE, Storage, Servers, and Clustering
MCSE (NT 4.0, W2K, W2K3)
VCP (ESX2, Vi3, vSphere4, vSphere5, vSphere 6.x)
RHCE
NPP3 (Nutanix Platform Professional)
jason andrade
Frequent Advisor

Re: VC-FC / MSA2312fc

*why* do you need a switch if you don't need zoning or access control at a fabric level etc

i'm not familiar with the msa in question but.. if you can do any sort of access control on the storage side.. i'm struggling to understand why this wouldn't work without a switch ?

that said, i'm a little confused - isn't VC applicable only to Flex10s or is the original poster talking about using FlexFabric and VirtualConnect ?

-j
Steven Clementi
Honored Contributor

Re: VC-FC / MSA2312fc

"*why* do you need a switch if you don't need zoning or access control at a fabric level etc"

The "switch" is your traffic cop. It is what you use to interconnect SAN Devices. You can not do that with a Virtual Connect module. It is just another "SAN Device"

"i'm not familiar with the msa in question but.. if you can do any sort of access control on the storage side.. i'm struggling to understand why this wouldn't work without a switch ?"

If you wantedto directly connect a server to the MSA, that would probably work just fine. But again...you are connecting an HBA directly to the Storage Array. Using a passthru fibre channel module, you could theoretically do this with blade servers, but you'd be limiting yourself to only connecting 2 or 4 servers. With the switch, you could connect the max number of servers, 256 I believe for the MSA2k (Yep, Icould be wrong on that number).

"that said, i'm a little confused - isn't VC applicable only to Flex10s or is the original poster talking about using FlexFabric and VirtualConnect ?"

Flex10 is an Ethernet function. It allows your FlexNics to be split into mutiple individual nics with dedicated badnwidth.

Virtual Connect modules are available for Ethernet and Fibre Channel connectivity.


Steven
Steven Clementi
HP Master ASE, Storage, Servers, and Clustering
MCSE (NT 4.0, W2K, W2K3)
VCP (ESX2, Vi3, vSphere4, vSphere5, vSphere 6.x)
RHCE
NPP3 (Nutanix Platform Professional)