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BL20p servers and number of SAN ports used

 
QUACH
New Member

BL20p servers and number of SAN ports used

Hello,

I would like to get some information about the SAN connectivity of BL20p blade servers. I couldn't found details in the documentation.

I'm currently working on an architecture with BL20p blade servers with Dual Port Fibre Channel Mezzanine Cards, GbE2 switches and GbE2 Storage Connectivity Kits.

For 8 blades with double attachment (8 attachment on each GbE2 Interconnect switch ie 16 attachments), how many ports will I need on the SAN switches ? 16 ports or less ?

Indeed, I'm wondering if using blade servers would allow me to use less SAN ports than if I use normal servers in racks.

Thank you in advance.
5 REPLIES 5
David Claypool
Honored Contributor

Re: BL20p servers and number of SAN ports used

All the 'Storage Connectivity Kit' does is extend the FC port to a point on the back of the enclosure. What you want to do is use the Brocade or McData BladeSystem switches. Not only will that save you ports on your offboard SAN switches, it will be more affordable because you won't need a GBIC for each of the ports, just the uplinks. See http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/blades/components/san-switches.html
Oleg Koroz
Honored Contributor

Re: BL20p servers and number of SAN ports used

Steven Clementi
Honored Contributor

Re: BL20p servers and number of SAN ports used

As David suggests, the SAN Switch options are the only way your blades will have less fibre cabling then regular servers like DL380's or 580's, etc.

The SAN Connectivity like the old Patch Panel 2 kit only extends the firbe ports form the backplane... to the front or rear of the blade enclosure. Considering that you would have to get an extra 8 ports on your SAN switch, using the SAN connectivity kit, it may be more cost effective to have the SAN Switch option, especially if you plan on having multiple enclosures connected to the SAN.


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)
QUACH
New Member

Re: BL20p servers and number of SAN ports used

Hello,

Thanks a lot for all your answers that were very useful.

Just an additional question to be sure that my understandind is correct : if I use hp brocade SAN switches in the enclosure, I can use only one external SAN port on each switch for the eight blades. So, I would only need two ports on my SAN infrastructure to connect the eight blade servers. Am I right ?
Steven Clementi
Honored Contributor

Re: BL20p servers and number of SAN ports used

Yes. Since the Switch is actually a full Brocade Switch, you can interconnect them with another external switch with just 1 ISL (each), though if you expect you may want/need high bandwidth between the switch (external) and the servers, you may want to opt for a trunking option which I think is available on that Blade Switch option.

Also, not too sure about the licenses that ome with it, but it should come with at least a 2domain fabric license, if not a full license.


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)