P6300 + M6625 + 10Gbe (iscsi) setup

[MichaelM55]

Hi,

I´m planning a P6300 setup which will be added to our EVA4400 based system. The new SAN should have ISCSI running on 10Ge instead of FC.

I wanted to look at the specification sheet of "HP M6625 2.5-inch SAS Drive Enclosure (AJ840A)" Well, there isn´t one. The M6625 uses SAS ports for signaling, right? But what about data? Does it also have 10Gbe (SFP+?) builtin?

Btw, is there a P6000 configurator tool which will help me playing with the available parts?

[Johan Guldmyr]

Hey, there wasn't much details out for the M6412 enclosures on the EVA4400 either.

The disk enclosures don't have front-end ports, they only have the SAS ports as they only connect to the HSV-enclosure. And on the HSV-enclosure that's where the 10GbE Ports are.

If you want to see more details here is the link the P6000 manuals:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DocumentIndex.jsp?contentType=SupportManual&lang=en&cc=us&docIndexId=64179&taskId=101&prodTypeId=12169&prodSeriesId=5062117

HP P6300/P6500 Enterprise Virtual Array Installation Guide (5697-8091, June 2011)

HP P6300/P6500 EVA M6612/6625 Disk Enclosure Installation Instructions (5697-0179, June 2011)

Those two should give you enough details about how it's cabled/set up.

While looking for this I also found this link:

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/12893_na/12893_na_Changes.HTML
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13904_na/13904_na_CHANGES.HTML

This way you can see the revisions of the quickspecs :)

[Torsten.]

The new EVA (P6000) backend is always SAS, but you have a choice of FC or iSCSI frontends.

[MichaelM55]

Hi,

thank you for clarification. One of our goal is to interconnect the current EVA4400 FC based system with the new P6300 ISCSI setup, i.e. the connected servers should be able to use the storage of both SANs.

The FC switch (two Brocade 4/16) are fully equipped, unfortunately. For the old servers, it would be easy to use the P6300 SAN  as ISCSI target. But what about the new servers?

[Johan Guldmyr]

You may want to check out HP's MPX200 that you could use to make the EVA LUNs into iSCSI targets.

[MichaelM55]

hm, hopefully the MPX200 isn´t the only possibility for interconnect?

One interesting thing about P6300 and ISCSI is, that you can actually save money or get more bang for the buck while using. Just replace a pair of fully licensed Brocade 8/40 with a pair of A5820 and DAC. If you compare both of them, including 5 years of full service, you can easily save 50k$ which you can spend on more disk arrays and servers.

Needing two MPX200, well, needless to say that the money would have to put into those.

[Johan Guldmyr]

Well, the EVA4400 doesn't do iSCSI natively. So you need something that translates between FC and iSCSI.

You might be able to do it with some kind of server/gateway or possibly other manufacturers have a product that has this feature. Another idea: would it be possible to put the EVA4400 behind another Storage Virtualization Platform? Like SVSP (not sold anymore) but there are maybe more examples.

[Uwe Zessin]

> hopefully the MPX200 isn´t the only possibility for interconnect?

Even a P6000 with iSCSI front-end has a little MPX in the controller enclosure ;-)

[Johan Guldmyr]

Oh yeah, look at that :)
Apparently it's called MEZ75 according to the P6300/6500 Installation Guide page 35.

[Uwe Zessin]

There is a MEZ50 and a MEZ75 MEZZanine card, but I can find the strings in only 2 PDF files and a customer advisory. I've only spend a short look and it is not obvious what is the difference. According to the User Guide, both seem to be able to do iSCSI, iSCSI/FCoE.

In the end, it does not really matter, because you buy a complete pair of controller modules with a certain feature set and the MEZZ card is just one part of it (like a power supply, a memory module, ...).

[MichaelM55]

Well, it seems it won´t be so easy, then. A MEZ75 for EVA4400 would be the solution.

What about HP EVA 4400 iSCSI Connectivity Option (mpx100b): http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/12413_na/12413_na.html ?

Sounds interesting, but can it be used concurrently with the FC switch?

[Johan Guldmyr]

The mpx100b does not go into the EVA4400 controller enclosure. So yes, you can use it with the embeddd SAN switch if you have those.

Manuals for it is here:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DocumentIndex.jsp?contentType=SupportManual&lang=en&cc=us&docIndexId=64179&taskId=101&prodTypeId=329290&prodSeriesId=1833384

[MichaelM55]

Hm, which embedded SAN switch do you mean?

[Johan Guldmyr]

Oh, well there is a version of the EVA4400 that has an embedded SAN-switch, I thought that was the one you were talking about.

If you get an mpx all the FP Ports in the EVA can't go to the FC switch.

[MichaelM55]

Indeed, the two EVAs have some ports left. So, these ones will be connected to the (two) MPX100Bs and that one will be connected to the P6300, right?

[Johan Guldmyr]

Hi,

yes,

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/12413_na/12413_na.html

there's only two 1GbE ports per MPX100. Is that enough for your systems?

[MichaelM55]

Hi, well it has to be and is actually enough. Haven´t seen a throughput of more than 80MB/s on that array in real world applications in the past...

Thanks for your help!

[Johan Guldmyr]

Great, hope it works out well for you.

In this forum you can also say thanks with the kudos star.