Hello managers !
My original post was:
>We plan to build a cluster of 5 ES40 with a 2TB ES12000 box
>which will be also connected to 3 Sun Enterprise 450 and 4500.
>Our vendor recommended to split the SAN into two segments,
>one connected over an 8 port switch to the suns, the other
>over an 16 port switch to the ES40. The ES12000 will have
>4 HSZ80 controllers which are connected to both switches.
>... But according to our vendor there may be another restriction:
>Only 4 ES40 can be on one 16 port switch. Maybe that's related
>to the 16 processors, but as I understand the operation of the
>controller, only one processor can deliver a request to the
>esa12000 at any time (in one ES40), so it should be possible
>to connect more than 4 full ES40 machines to the switch. Am I
>right ? Does anyone else has such a setup running ? Or should
>we consider to split up the 16 porter into two 8 porters ?
Unfortunately I only received one suggestion from Don:
>>From: rye_at_jwfc.acom.mil
The issue you hav eis based on the number of Initiators in a FC Zone. If
all systems do not need to see all of the storage, simply zone the
controllers to the proper systems and the count hopefully will be correct.
This is something like braking the SAN into segments, it is just done at the
swith level.
>>
And this is not the case for our cluster, where every machine must see the
whole array. The problem seems to be related to the fact that there may be
20 FC-AL initiators (although 4 are on the same adaptor card), but the
switch can only handle 16 at a time. So breaking up the 16 to two 8 porters
may also does not solve the problem. Is the conclusion right that we may
need a 24 port FC-AL switch ? Or can this problem be solved by updating
the switch firmware (if a patch for that problem is available) ?
Thanks to Don and all who may have further suggestions !
Dr. Udo Grabowski email: udo.grabowski_at_imk.fzk.de
Institut f. Meteorologie und Klimaforschung II, Forschungszentrum Karslruhe
Postfach 3640, D-76021 Karlsruhe, Germany Tel: (+49) 7247 82-6026
http://www.fzk.de/imk/imk2/ame/grabowski/ Fax: " -6141
Received on Thu Sep 02 1999 - 12:49:39 NZST