StorageWorks 4/8 SAN Switch configuration question

[MCJones]

We are in early stages of setting up a virtualised environment. We have a fairly simple configuration:
1x MSA1500 with 2 controllers
2x ESX Servers each with dual HBA cards
2x FC Switches (HP StorageWorks 4/8 SAN Switch)

For redundancy, the HBA's on the servers are connected to each FC switch, that is, HBA1 on server 1 is connected to Switch 1 and HBA2 on Server 1 is connected to Switch 2 and so on.

The disk array is configured as just 1 LUN and the MSA1500 controllers are active/passive.
We plan to set up a VMWare cluster and implement VMotion.

My question relates to the FC switches. They are new out of the box and all I have done is update the firmware to the very latest version, 6.1.0.

Is there any further configuration required for the FC switches or is it just that we need to configure the pathing from the ESX servers?

I am assuming that the FC switches are in effect stand alone and that should there be an outage that the ESX servers would use their pathing configuration to find an active path.

Thanks in advance.

[Del_3 · Accepted solution]

If I understand you correctly I belive the answer is yes. Each FC switch should not be connected to each other via a fiber cable called an ISL. So each switch is a discreet and "stand alone" device that never interacts with the other FC switch. If you were to suffer an outage the native multipathing software on ESX will handle the path failover to the now active fabric (switch). The forums on vware.com have a wealth of information on configuration of ESX an the MSA arrays.

Now one more thing. If you plan on adding any other OS's to your SAN you must zone the switches to prvent OS interation.

Hope this helps.

[MCJones]

Thanks for the response, that is what I hoped.