Fabric interconnect connection

[Hythim Ali El Hadad]

Hi,

I have a FI that will connect to storage through a brocade san switch and to a network through the core 6500 switch

So I'll configure FC end host mode NPV

For the Ethernet, Is this need to be switch mode and to configure trunk between core switch and FI. or it can be in end host mode and configure port channel LACP and it is ok with that. I see on Cisco that when connection to router or layer 3 aggregation, you need to set switch mode.

The second thing is that I have two 300 G SAS on every blade server. Is it better to configure these local desk with RAID 1 for mirror and boot from local. then to attach the storage for the Applications only ?

The final thing is after checking flogi-table and flogi-database and found it is ok with the storage

Then If using VM, I can add the storage as a new datastore

But if using direct OS on the blade server as windows, how can I detect the required LUN ?

Thanks

[Walter Dey]

Hi

Best practise: Fibrechannel and Ethernet in End Host Mode (no Ethernet switching on FI)

Local Disk versus SAN Boot: with local disk you loose the portability of a service profile between different blades. It would then require to move the local disk as well, which is possible, but requires to be on site.

If you install e.g. Windows on a blade, you have to install the Storage drivers (fnic) as well as Ethernet (enic) drivers, which are not bundled with windows os iso. After that you should be able to see the lun.

Walter.

[Hythim Ali El Hadad]

Thanks for your reply

So for LAN we'll configure it as port channel from UCS and as trunked port channel LACP from Core side

So SAN boot is better. But how can we make use of this two 300 SAS HDDs.

If I'll implement nexus 1000v for virtual networking, Is this need any license or I can deploy it on virtual machines directly. How to know that I must use nexus 1000v

Many thanks again for your clarifications

[Walter Dey]

Hi

So for LAN we'll configure it as port channel from UCS and as trunked port channel LACP from Core side

ideal would be a vpc from each fabric interconnect to the Northbound Core switch.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/switches/nexus-7000-series-switches/white_paper_c11-623265.html

So SAN boot is better. But how can we make use of this two 300 SAS HDDs.

good point; they cost money, take space, power and cooling. as soon you use it for user data and / or OS, you loose flexibility. cache use would be however ok.

If I'll implement nexus 1000v for virtual networking.

If you use VMware, its ESXi host which sees N1000v; the VM don't see it.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/switches/nexus-1000v-switch-vmware-vsphere/white_paper_c11-558242.html

[Hythim Ali El Hadad]

Hi Walter,

I know that we can configure vpc on the northbound switch if it is nexus

So we configure vpn from both nexus switches to one FI, and another vpc to the other

But we are now connecting to 6500 core switch. So it is not supporting vpc configuration

And we'll have the connections like that

VSS Core switch

--               --

--       --      --

--               --

FI-A         FI-B

[Walter Dey]

No problem

see eg. https://supportforums.cisco.com/discussion/11199841/connecting-cisco-ucs-6120-fi-directly-cisco-catalyst-6500