Quickloop vs. Fabric conundrum

[Timothy Czarnik]

Hey all,

Here's my situation: We have 4 HP servers, a VA7400 disk box, and a Surestore 2/20 tape drive. All of these have fiber channel cards, and I want to connect all of them together via a Brocade 2800 fibre switch. Normally, not an issue.

However, one of our servers, a K570, is using an older fiber card that cannot talk in fabric mode (per HP support). It seems that I have to connect this server to the fiber switch in quickloop mode. All the other devices can communicate in fabric mode.

I have a few questions on this configuration I kinda need answered:

1) I assume that these devices, through some sort of shenanigans, can all communicate with each other via the Brocade switch. Is that correct?

2) Assuming that #1 is correct, do I now have to set up all the ports in the Brocade switch to run as quickloop, or can I just set 1 up as quickloop while the rest run as fabric?

3) If #2 is correct, will there be any issues with the fabric attached devices working working with the quickloop attached server?

4) Any "gotchas!" immediately spring to mind to anyone out there?

Any and all feedback is appreciated and will be rewarded! I thank you all in advance for your help!

Tim

[Ajay Sishodia]

Tim,

Well if you don't have to put other servers in fabric mode, than you can use private_loop for each device you listed, including the K.
No issues than....!!

HTH
Ajay

[Tom Geudens]

Hi,
1) Yes
2) 3) 4) Take a look at the following HP document, which cleared up these things for me : http://www.docs.hp.com/hpux/onlinedocs/J2635-90014/J2635-90014.html

Hope this gets you on the way,
Tom

[Declan McCann]

Hi Tim,
If your switch is in fabric mode you can set individual ports as quick loop. The command would be:
qlportenable
The K will talk to this port in quick loop mode, the other devices will talk to their ports in fabric.

Hope this helps
Declan

[Timothy Czarnik]

Thanks for the help so far!

Ajay - Thanks, but not an option for me now.

Tom - Excellent guide! Thanks!

Declan - Good info! You say that the K will talk to its port in quickloop mode, and the other devices will talk to their ports in fabric mode, but will all the ports be able to talk to each other still? Will my K server connected to a quickloop port still see and be able to use my tape library attached to a fabric port? That is the meat and potatoes of my inquiry. Please don't be afraid to respond to me like I'm a 6 year old slow learner. Thats not that far off the mark.

Tim

[Lakshmi Nagarajan]

It is all a matter of zoning. Set your switch to fabric mode (qldisable). Create zones per host adapter so that it sees the disks/tape that you want it to, using WWNs. (There can only be one host adapter per zone!). Enable quickloop on the port which is the Kxxx (qlportenable). Then create a quickloop zone for the K and the disks/tape. Now create a zone config and add all the zones to it and enable the zone config. The instructions are in the Brocade manual. You can do this via browser (enter Brocade ip address) or command line by telneting to Brocade.

[Lakshmi Nagarajan]

OOPS! Missed your question. Can't share fabric and loop in same zone!. HP sells newer hbas for the Kxxx which is fabric enabled! A6685A. Sorry for the wrong post!

[Timothy Czarnik]

Ok, I am getting very close to being able to draw my own conclusions now! Thanks for the help so far!

Lakshmi has just said that quickloop and fabric devices can't exist in the same zone. Seeing as how I MUST use the tape library to backup the K class server which can only talk in quickloop mode, and seeing as how I also need to backup the other servers to this tape library, and if this is indeed correct, then it seems that in order to get all devices talking to each other (without having to buy additional hardware), I'm going to need to re-enable quickloop in the fibre switch, and set all ports to talk in quickloop mode.

If someone can confirm that this is indeed the case, I'll be happy and will begin creating a task list for Sunday morning.

Tim