Thanks to:
Greg Rudd
Pat O'Brien
Alan at Compaq
Greg Freemeyer
Michael Wheelock
William Magill
Bluejay Adametz
Dan Price
Raul Sossa
Scot Rogers
Alan Davis
and more...
I did my best to reconcile some conflicting recommendations. If any of you
experts find an error please let me know and I'll repost the summary.
Summary:
* No special licenses are required to connect a host machine to a SAN.
The platform kits are handy for beginners but not required.
* The software for the HSG must support fabric. 8.6 was the most
recommended version. Apparently there are different versions that support
Data Replication, Arbitrated loop and Snapshot.
* A heterogenous SAN would probably work as long as the storage was
zoned so the hosts see only the storage they are supposed to (no file
sharing across platforms).
* SAN switches are SAN switches. Most people either telneted to the
switch to manage it, used the serial connection, or used a web interface.
* Some excellent documentation is available at (got an adobe error on
one doc!?!):
ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/products/storageworks/techdoc/san/
* Some operating systems can use multiple HBA's and paths (openvms,
Tru64 v5.1). Other OS can not use it without additional software (AIX and
NT require Securepath).
* Your should configure two switches to have some redundancy at a
critical spot. A SAN switch failure would be very bad without it...
* Firmware for the HBA's, SAN Switch, and HSG's need to be up to date.
* Tru64 version 4.x has problems with "seeing" SCSI id's higher than
7. The HBA's will produce pseudo scsi disk devices with id's higher then
seven. These are invisible to the SCSI cam system. Compaq provides emxmgr
which allows you to reassign scsi id's. A few comments not to connect Tru64
4.x systems to a SAN.
* Keep track of your connections. Rename them to something
meaningfull once they are established.
* If you want to do enterprise backup inside the san, only certain
OS's are supported by Veritas and Legato. Keep that in mind when buying
enterprise backup software.
Some suggested that your HSG's should be configured in transparent failover
mode. I would think that mutlibuss failover mode would work if your
operating system supported multiple HBA's/multiple paths.
Maybe a few of you experts can straighten this out for me?
Original question:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I am looking to setup a small SAN composed of the following HW components
using Tru64 version 4.0G.
This is my first foray into SAN-land.
qty 1: Compaq SAN switch.
qty 2: Dual HSG80 Ra8000's.
qty 1: Ds10 alphaserver.
qty 1: Ds20e alphaserver.
qty 2: Fibre Channel HBA
Questions:
Do I need to buy any TRU64 special licenses/platform kits for this config?
Do the HSG80's need to be running a particular version of ACS software to
function in a SAN?
(I have one HSG80 running V85G-0, Hardware E11 not in a SAN)
Do I need special software to configure the SAN switch?
Will a SAN like this support LINUX, AIX, Winnt 4.0, Winnt 2000 and Openvms
at the same time?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
James Kurtenbach
Clinical Reference Laboratory
8433 Quivira
Lenexa, KS 66215
(913) 492 3652 x 1651
kurtenbachj_at_crlcorp.com
Received on Thu Feb 28 2002 - 18:44:25 NZDT