Nexus 5548 - storage/vsan ( best practices doubt)

[FedeSaraullo]

Hello Everyone! First at all, I don´t have many experience in storage solutions. 

At the moment, the client has one nexus 5548 with two vsan toward 2 storage device.

I have to add another nexus in a vpc solution. Do you recommend me to separate the vsans in each nexus? I have seen that it is a best practices solutions (picture 1)

On other hand, could i configure both vsans in each nexus as i show you in the picture 2? 

Thanks in advance!

[Walter Dey]

From the storage point of view, you need 2 separate fabrics; eg. FC: FI-A connected to MDS-A, FI-B connected to MDS-B; and on MDS-A eg. VSAN 10 and on MDS-B VSAN 11.

vPC is ok, but this is Ethernet only and not classical FC or even FCoE !

see eg. https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/switches/nexus-5000-series-switches/116248-configure-fcoe-00.html

where you could replace FCoE by FC

[FedeSaraullo]

Hello Walter! Thanks for your reply, with respect to vpc it was just a data. So, instead of the MDS, we have an N5K with FC features. The question is the following, for the moment, the client has an N5K working with 2 vSAN (200 and 300), if we add another N5K, we must separate it in two, really?
Thanks!

[Walter Dey · Accepted solution]

Yes this is best practise for FC !

Keep the 2 fabrics physically and logically separate. (today you only have a logical separation by means of the 2 VSAN's). However, if that N5k goes down, you are down completely.

Have a look at the second picture in http://www.vmtrooper.com/2012/07/30/vsphere-on-cisco-ucs-fibre-channel-design/

[FedeSaraullo]

Thanks for your time Walter!