Best practice for presenting different storage vendors arrays..?

[liamjmitch]

Hi, can't seem to find a specific answer in writing on this.

Typical FlexPod already deployed, with different vsans on different n5ks.

Uplinks from UCS / NetApp are FCoE.

So I now want to present some normal FC (not FCoE, nexsan) storage to the same blades on the UCS system via the n5ks.

My main questions are can I use same vsans / vHBAs as for NetApp storage, or should you be creating different vsans and vHBAs for different storage vendors?

If multiple vsan is recommended, is Trunking multiple vsans over FCoE from UCS to FC fine, I'm sure it is but just want some experience on it.

Thanks!

[Walter Dey]

In principle, you could use the same vhba and vsan to access different storage subsystem.

However, it might be a good idea, to make a separation based on different vsan's; now the zoning and zonesets are isolated. The caveat is that you need to create additional vhba's.

I prefer the latter, as there is also no sharing of traffic within the same vsan. although you might have fc trunking/channeling. Troubleshooting is also easier.

[dynamoxxx]

i would create another set of vHBAs but continue to use the same VSANs, vendor like EMC like you to not mix devices from other vendor ..they don't care if both sets of vHBAs are in the same VSAN. Don't make it more complicated than it should be.

@dynamoxxx

[Walter Dey]

I disagree ! using a different vsan gives you the advantage of decoupling zoning; and EMC likes this. If you have one vsan, a zoning problem of the other side can impact you.

[liamjmitch]

Thanks guys for the input, interesting to see there is a difference of opinion on this topic. Makes me feel happier that I'm not being too stupid and someones posted back a link to a best practice guide on the subject that I've blatantly missed! (still time for that no doubt!)

Like I've said, I haven't found anything specific in writing on this, but keeping vendors on seperate vsans / hbas feels like the best way to do it anyway with only a little extra config in the grand scheme of things.

[dynamoxxx]

wdey wrote:
I disagree ! using a different vsan gives you the advantage of decoupling zoning; and EMC likes this. If you have one vsan, a zoning problem of the other side can impact you.

EMC could care less if you have zones for different vendors in the same VSAN, as long as you don't put your VNX and IBM Shark targets in the same zone they don't care.