Configure HA for MDS

[Evan Ray]

I'm looking to setup a pair of MDS 9148S switches in a high available configuration.  I came across a post on the forums, where someone stated you won't trunk the switches, that you would simply create two separate fabrics.  Servers and SAN(in our case an EMC XtremIO) would then be dual homed to the switches. So you would basically create two separate VSANs, VSAN 10 for MDS SW1 and VSAN 20 for MDS SW2.

Is this best practice, and the recommended method to follow?  I'm just wondering how others have setup this configuration, and any recommendation they might have for a stabled HA setup for the SAN environment.  

Cheers, 

[dynamoxxx]

yes, that is what you want , two completely isolated fabrics.  How many Xbricks ?

[Evan Ray]

We just have one 10TB Xbrick to start.

Now would that be the same case if you were to use Nexus 5Ks?

[dynamoxxx]

same, assuming you are using FC ports on 5Ks.

[dynamoxxx]

take a look at page 17 and down

https://support.emc.com/docu56210_XtremIO-Host-Configuration-Guide.pdf?language=en_US

[Evan Ray]

That's what I needed.  Thank you very much dynamoxxx!  As always you are super helpful!! Much appreciated!! 

[dynamoxxx]

good luck Evan and enjoy XtremIO ..very nice box.

[Evan Ray]

I'm finalizing some of my notes, and I wanted to clarify for the N5Ks if we were going to use iSCSI would I then need to create a port-channel?  I'm curious to learn why one way and not the other.