Use of FC60 by two different OS

[Alan Wong_1]

Hi,

Our FC60 is connected to a SAN using Brocade Silkworm 2800 switches. Currently mainly HPUX systems are connected to it but now we have a requirement to connect a Win2000 box. I was told by our local support (Japan)that HP does not support dual OS use on FC60 officially and that it's possible but at our own risk. And that was the end of the it all from HP Japan. The local support is usually not supportive when it comes to things they are not use to so I need your help.
I need to know if it is possible to use both HPUX and Win2000 OS with FC60 at the same time (not the same partitions). If it is possible how much risk is involved or are there technical issues. Mainly any information would really be helpful about this as I were given none. Technical details are definitely highly welcomed. Thank you in advance and it's very important for our upcoming projects if it can or cannot be done. We can't afford another storage device.

Cheers,
Alan Wong
IT Manager, NMP
Nokia-Japan Co., Ltd.
chi-leung.wong@nokia.com

[Quin Hammes]

Alan,
I am trying to remember if you can allocate certain luns only over a specific fibre port on the fc60. I doubt it. If you can then I would have the HP go through one port and the NT go through another via the SAN. This is because Windows boxes are known to write a signature file to a disk that it sees. If this happens to a disk that is actually being used by the HP box then it will corrupt it. Of course there is a major problem with using only one port per system because then you have a single point of failure. How critical are these systems?


How much throughput do you need? If it can work, you could always use CIFS loaded on HP to utilize the storage on the FC60 without directly connecting through it. Just a idea but probably would not work for most applications because of the performance hit.

How total data do you need on the NT system?

[Peter Mattei]

Alan
I would not try to do it. There are different Firmware versions out for either HP-UX and Windows. Both are optimized for their environment.
Quins proposal would be a good way to provide file access from Windows over CIFS residing on HP-UX. Have a look at the HP docs site: http://www.docs.hp.com
document
http://www.docs.hp.com/cgi-bin/fsearch/framedisplay?top=/hpux/onlinedocs/B8725-90016/B8725-90016_top.html&con=/hpux/onlinedocs/B8725-90016/00/00/5-con.html&toc=/hpux/onlinedocs/B8725-90016/00/00/5-toc.html&searchterms=cifs&queryid=20020722-012407

Peter

[Martin Johnson]

Hi Alan,

I would not recommend directly attaching to the Win2000 box. Other replies have mentioned the risk, but you should also consider that since HP does not support that configuration, you may not be able to get support from HP for *ANY* problems that occur on the FC60.

It is much safer to use such products as CIFS or Samba.

HTH
Marty