New brocode switches to an existing SAN EVA4000

[WilliamSmith11]

Hi
A customer have bought two new brocades SAN switches 4/16 .

The EVA is a EVA4000 with controllers HSV200 not the HSV200-A.
So this controllers run up 2 GB.

Hi bought the 4/16 brocade switch because he was thinking that with the new san swithes he will get 4 GB in the HSV controllers ports too.

I said him that is not a good idea because he will not get more speed in the HSV controller ports , also I said that he can cascade the new san switches to the san switches that are working at this time.

Also I said that some OS are attached to the domain ID of the san switches and is possible that if we change the domain then the presented virtual disks will be see as new virtual disks for the OS.

Other Idea that the custumer has or had is:
Attach each port of the controller HSV200 to one port of each san switch (4 san switch)

I think that is not a good idea.

As always comments are welcomes

W.S

[Amar_Joshi · Accepted solution]

William,

It's not good idea to connect each port to 4 different SAN Switches, first you will fall into a non-supported environment and you may also face problems during host access (due to different HOPs for different EVA ports. Also, this will become major issue during any single path failure (host/fiber/san-switch failure).

You can draw a picture yourself with proposed configuration and then consider any of the switch failure and look at the host which is accessing the EVA via longest HOP, it will not only look odd but will give you performance issue as well as oversubscription on ISLs too.

Keep it as it is, and add the new switches in individual fabric then attach new hosts there. If you need better connectivity (high IOs & Bandwidth) between switches then add more ISLs or even go for Trunking licenses.

* Think long term growth.