HOW TO CONNECT A CAT3850 (WITH SFP/SFP+10G PORTS) TO NETAPP FAS 2650

[Revenue_admin]

Hello All,

We have a bit of a small server room design problem where we are tasked with connecting a Netapp FAS2650 storage to a Cisco Cat3850 (which is the distribution switch). My questions are:-

How can this be accomplished without the purchase of an additional intermediary device (like an FC switch)?

Can the FAS2650 run with iSCSI instead of FC or FCoE?

Also can a Cat 3650 switch also connect to Blade servers without an intermediary device?

The Cat 3850/3650 switch infrastructure was chosen due to cost and size constraints which made using more advanced devices like Nexus switches unfit. Besides it's a server room with just 3 virtualized servers and Nexus seemed like an overkill.

Your responses would be highly appreciated.

Regards.

[shimenoy]

Hi :)

I don't know the details, but something like this? 

I'd recommended to refer to the following.
https://library.netapp.com/ecm/ecm_download_file/ECMLP2316768

HTH

[Revenue_admin]

Exactly. Something like the physical connections you have in the diagram. however getting that to work is another matter entirely due to transport protocol differences. So my question is about that, what type of port/protocol configuration is used (FC, FCoE, iSCSI). I know Cat 3850 doesn't support FC or FCoE though. The link you attached doesn't say much on this 

[Kirk J]

Greetings.

The general specs for the FAS 2650  for IO options say:

Onboard I/O: UTA2 (8Gb FC/16Gb FC/FCoE/10GbE/1GbE)

As I don't have one of those to look at, I'm not sure if you have specific I/O modules you have to choose: i.e. 10Gb E, vs 8/16Gb FC

The specific capabilities your storage has will dictate what your options are.

With your CAT3850 you would be limited to iSCSI, NFS, CIFSs which operate over standard Ethernet/TCP/IP networks.

Thanks,

Kirk...

[Revenue_admin]

Hi Kirk J,

Yes you're right. But I looked at the datasheet for the FAS2650 earlier and it says that it supports iSCSI with any ethernet switch. So I believe that would be connected via the 1/10Gbe ports. My worries now would be how to handle microbursts and buffer overflow/packet drops on the Cat3850.

Thanks a lot.

Regards,

Rev Admin