UCS Mini Appliance Ports

[nsous9001]

We have a UCS mini that is cabled directly to a Netapp 2552 array. We want to use Ethernet (FCoE) for the connections from the UCS chassis to the Netapp array.

Port 1 is configured as an FCoE Storage Port (assigned to the VSAN on Fab A/B each) -- this will be used for boot from SAN

Port 2 is configured as an Appliance Port (assigned to an NFS VLAN) --- this will be used for NFS traffic

Appliance ports cannot be used in a LAN pin group. The question I'm trying to answer is about how the UCS chassis will respond if Port 2 is configured as an Appliance Port - will it send NFS traffic correctly down port 2? If not, how should the ports be configured?

[Walter Dey]

see eg.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/servers-unified-computing/ucs-infrastructure-ucs-manager-software/116082-config-ucs-das-00.html

https://supportforums.cisco.com/discussion/12522916/flexpod-implementation-guide-direct-connect-fcoe

On the FCoE storage port, you will receive a flogi (remember FI is in FC switch mode)

On the appliance port, you run classical Ethernet, expecting a device with a TCP/IP stack

FI will store the MAC address of the attached NFS device, and therefore know how to forward Ethernet frames.

[nsous9001]

For port 1 (FCoE storage port), do I need to configure a storage connection policy?

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/servers-unified-computing/ucs-infrastructure-ucs-manager-software/116082-config-ucs-das-00.html

http://www.infiniteiops.com/2013/02/using-fc-zoning-in-ucs-211a.html

[Walter Dey]

Yes ! zoning is done on the FI (FC switch mode) ! this happens automatically by means of the service profile, where you define initators as well as target (storage connection policy)