Storage Area Network Configurations for RA8000/ESA12000 on Windows NT-Intel Application Note

Application Note
AA–RHH6B–TE Page 21
• 16-port FC Switches, total number of switch ports available for Servers and Storage is 42
Maximum Server Connectivity,
Up to 30 Servers and 3 Storage Systems (12 storage ports/6 Active, 6 Standby)
[48 – 6 ISL ports – 12 storage ports = 30 server ports]
Maximum of 16 servers configured on any one controller pair
Maximum of 8 servers configured on any active controller host port
Or Maximum Storage Capacity,
Up to 9 Storage Systems (36 storage ports/18 Active, 18 Standby) and 6 Servers
[48 – 6 ISL ports – 6 server ports = 36 storage ports]
Maximum of 4 active controller host ports per FC HBA
• 8-port FC Switches, total number of switch ports available for Servers and Storage is 18
Maximum Server Connectivity,
Up to 14 Servers and 1 Storage System (4 storage ports/2 Active, 2 Standby)
[24 – 6 ISL ports – 4 storage ports = 14 server ports]
Maximum of 8 servers configured on any active controller host port
Or Maximum Storage Capacity,
Up to 4 Storage Systems (16 storage ports/8 Active, 8 Standby) and 2 Servers
[24 – 6 ISL ports – 2 server ports = 16 storage ports]
Maximum of 4 active controller host ports per FC HBA
• All HSG80 array controllers configured in Transparent Failover Mode
SAN Configuration 5 Fabric Rules
• Total Switches = 3, 16-port or 8-port
• Maximum Switch Hops (nominal ) = 1
• Maximum Switch Hops (worst case ) = 2
• Maximum number of ISLs between any two switches = 15
• Maximum Distances:
Up to 500 meters per FC cable segment, 1.5 km total server to storage (2.0 km worst case)
when using 50 micron multi-mode fibre optic cable. Refer to general Fabric rules for other
cable types
Up to 10 km per inter-switch link, 11 km total server to storage (21 km worst case) when
using 9 micron single mode fibre optic cable and long wave GBICs
SAN Configuration 5 Notes
• Each FC Switch must have a unique domain number (Domain_ID)
• When configured with greater than 4 Windows NT Servers per active controller host port,
classified as an “NT Extended Configuration” (refer to the StorageWorks Windows NT Platform
Kit FC Software Setup Utility)
• For servers accessing controller host port 1 use LUN number and offset values in the range of 0 –
99, for controller host port 2 use number and offset values in the range 100 -199
• Performance considerations, assuming relatively equal server load:
If using three storage systems, for balanced performance across all servers, configure one
third of the servers on each of the storage systems and equally on the controller port pairs.
The recommended maximum number of controller host ports configured per FC HBA is 2 for
high bandwidth applications and 4 for high throughput applications.
Use these general performance rules to determine the optimum number of ISLs required
between both switches.
For balanced SAN performance configure 1 storage system on each FC switch
For the highest available performance, whenever possible, devices that exchange the highest
amount of data should be connected to the same FC switch, for example, servers and the
storage assigned to them should be configured on the same FC switch, otherwise: