Fibre channel info pointers needed.

[abrsvc]

I have a request for setting up a SAN for OpenVMS. The site already has DS-SL13 trays for U320 SCSI drives and is looking into Fibre channel drives/trays etc. Is there any documentation on how to set this up and what hardware is required?

We have Alpha DS10s with teh Fibre channel cards available. (Not yet ready to upgrade to I64, but that will happen soon.)

Thanks for any pointers.

Dan

[abrsvc]

Forgot to include:

Currently using OpenVMS V7.3-2 with upgrade to V8.4 planned in the next 9 months.

Dan

[Hoff · Accepted solution]

Get rid of the old UltraSCSI Universal StorageWorks gear; that's junk. You'll require a bridge to use that on the SAN, and it'll be hotter and slower and far less capacious and far more power-hungry than what is available now, and it'll also be correspondingly more expensive to support and maintain.

Some of the older MSA-class kit does have SCSI bridging and there are what amount to SAN-SCSI bridges around, but I'd look to use newer SAS and SATA and the FC disk bricks (see the notches on the sides of those Universal sleds for details here), rather than the older SCSI disk bricks. (And I'd still stay alway from the Universal stuff in general, given it's big and hot and slow and expensive and... unless you're building a salvage-SAN here, that is.)

I have stuff posted around the console level commands needed to configure and boot the boxes, once you have the SAN itself working.

http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/786

As for the controllers and host-bus adapters (HBAs), use the HP catalogs and HP SPOCK to determine what's supported, then start reading the manuals for the particular widgets.

There are documents for the various devices and some introductory presentations around, and HP has an omnibus "HP StorageWorks SAN Design Reference Guide" document (59th edition, or some such) that you can Google for. The OpenVMS manuals (for clustering) have a section "Configuring Fibre Channel as an OpenVMS Cluster Storage Interconnect" that can be of interest, too, as might the old VTJ stuff and other stuff here:

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/journal/
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/availability/index.html
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/storage.html

I'll also presume there are good reason why you're working with boxes that are now old enough to now cost somewhere between US$100 to US$600 on the market, too; this is very old gear
.

[abrsvc]

Thanks for the pointers. Without getting into details (that I can't divulge anyway), we are stuck with the Alpha platform for the moment. Primarily due to legacy software that would cost more to migrate than we can afford. I can and am working upgrading to the I64 platform for some future stability and growth for the main datacenter systems. The local units will remain with DS10 and DS10L systems. The SAN idea is more for consolidation and growth. We use 9G drives now along with 36G drives. Soon some will need to grow beyond that limit. The DS-SL trays were the least expensive way to get beyond the 36G drive limit and bring the site to a more "modern" drive.

Because cost is more important at this time and spares are not a problem. I'm looking for secondary market/used gear that can be implemented easily and quickly. I have fibre channel boards now that are unused for the DS10s. I'll check out the pointers and post any additional clarification requests.

Thanks,
Dan

[EdgarZamora_1]

I'd look into getting a cheap, used MSA1000. You could populate it with your existing U320 SCSI drives and/or buy refurb 146 - 300 GB drives. Not familiar with a DS-SL13 tray (is that the right model? I can't even find it on Google) but you may be able to use those trays too.

[Hoff]

The "DS-SL13R-BA" stuff is one of the part numbers for the old Universal-class StorageWorks SCSI shelves.