Deployment Guide

49 Dell Networking FC Flex IOM: Deployment of FCoE with Dell FC Flex IOM, Brocade FC switches,
and Dell Compellent Storage Array
Deployment/Configuration Guide
policies require Asymmetric Logical Unit Access (ALUA) support on the array and additional support
through a DSM.
Figure 38 Checking MPIO settings in Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise
Additionally, there are two IO connection options available with the Dell Compellent Storage Center
that allow multiple paths to be presented to the servers: Legacy Ports and Virtual Ports. You will be
asked which one you would like to use when initially setting-up the Compellent Storage Center and
configuring the FC IO cards. See the “Storage Center 6.2 System Setup Guide” for more information on
initial setup of the Dell Compellent Storage Center.
In legacy mode, front-end IO ports (in this case FC ports) are broken into primary and reserve ports
based on a fault domain. The reserve port is in a standby mode until a primary port fails over to the
reserve port. In terms of MPIO, this requires twice the IO ports to enable multiple paths. For
redundancy, a primary port connects to one controller, and the reserved port in that fault domain
connects to the other controller. While this is a highly robust failover solution, it requires a large number
of ports.
Dell Compellent introduced virtual ports in Storage Center 5.0. Virtual ports allow all front-end IO ports
to be virtualized. All FC ports can be used at the same time for load balancing as well as failover to