Design question, UCS and Nexus 5k - FCP

Max Sven · ‎03-09-2013

Hi,

I need some advice from (Mainly a Nexus person); I have drawn and attached the proposed solution (below).

I am designing a solution with 3 UCS chassis, Nexus 5K and 2X NetApp 3240 (T1 and T2). FC will be used to access disk on the SAN. Also, Non UCS compute will need access to the T2 SAN only. (UCS will access T1 and T2). It is a requirement for this solution that non UCS devices do not connect to the same Nexus switches that the UCS chassis use.

UCS Compute:

the 3 X chassis will connect to 2 X 6296 FIs which will cross connect to the a 2 X Nexus 5K through a FC port channel, the Nexus 5Ks will be configured in NPIV mode to provide access to the SAN. FC from each Nexus 5K to the NetApp controllers will be provided through a total of 4 X FC Port Channels (2 FC member ports per PC) from each nexus 5K one going to controller A and the other to controller B.

Non UCS compute:

These will connect directly through their HBAs to their own Nexus 5Ks and then to the T2 SAN, these will be zoned to never have access to the T1 SAN.

Questions:

1- As the UCS compute will need to have access to the T1, what is the best way to connect the Nexus 5Ks on the LHS in the image below to the Nexus on the RHS (This should be FC connection).

2- Can fiber channel be configured in a vPC domain as Ethernet? Is this a better way for this solution?

3- Is FC better than FCoE for this solution? I hear FCoE is still not highly recommended.

4- Each NetApp controller is only capable of pushing 20GBps max, this is why each port channel connecting to each controller is only 2 members. However, I’m connecting 4 port channel members from each Fabric Interconnect (6296) to each Nexus switch. Is this a waste? Remember that connectivity form each FI is also required to the T2 SAN.

dfilenko · ‎03-09-2013

Max,

What you are implementing is traditional FlexPod design with slight variations.

I recommend to look at FlexPod design zone for some additional material if you have not done so yet.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/ns340/ns414/ns742/ns743/ns1050/landing_flexpod.html

To answer your questions:

1) FC and FCoE do not support vPC. If UCS needs to have access to T1, then there is no need to have ISL between sites. If UCS needs to have access to T1 and T2, then best option would be to set up VSAN trunking on N5K and UCS and configure vHBAs accordingly.

2) Both should work just fine. If you go with FCoE, then UCS would need to be on the latest version for multi-hop FCoE support.

3) If you only worried about storage throughput then yes, you will never utilize 40Gb PO if your source will be 20Gb PO. What are your projected peak and average loads on this network?