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Ask the Expert: Troubleshooting Cisco UCS with Fibre Channel Storage

ciscomoderator
Community Manager
Community Manager


Welcome to the Cisco Support Community Ask the Expert conversation. This is an opportunity to learn and ask questions about Cisco Unified Computing System™ (Cisco UCS®) Fibre Channel storage connectivity and best practices for your environment as well as troubleshooting storage connectivity issues.

Cisco UCS fabric interconnects are capable of connecting to Fibre Channel switches in (NPV) and Fibre Channel switching modes. Also, the Fibre Channel storage can be connected directly to Cisco UCS fabric interconnects. With the newer versions, Cisco UCS provides Fibre Channel zoning at the fabric interconnect level.

Ali Aslanpour is a customer support engineer for the Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) data center server virtualization team based in San Jose, California. He has been working in the Cisco TAC for the past two and half years with a primary focus on data center technologies, such as Cisco UCS, Cisco Nexus® 1000V Switches, Cisco UCS INVICTA™ Series Solid State Systems storage, and virtualization. He previously worked with EMC VNX for three years. He holds a master's degree from DeVry University in information system management and has Cisco CCIE® Data Center certification (43504).

Jalpa Patel specializes in data center technology. Jalpa has over 10 years of experience in information systems networking with a diverse background in LAN and WAN administration, network design and architecture, Internet applications and technology, Microsoft network administration, enterprise class data center operations, server consolidation, and application virtualization.

Jalpa has been working with Cisco UCS and Cisco Nexus products for the last four years and received a pioneer award for the Cisco UCS product. Jalpa received a masters of science degree in telecommunication networks from New York University and is CCIE (42465) in data centers.

Remember to use the rating system to let Ali and Jalpa know if you have received an adequate response. 

Because of the volume expected during this event, our experts may not be able to answer every question. Remember that you can continue the conversation in the Data Center, under the subcommunity, Unified Computing, shortly after the event. This event lasts through June 6, 2014. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other Cisco Support Community members.

 

8 Replies 8

Sarah Staker
Level 1
Level 1

Hello Ali and Jalpa,

Really appreciate you covering this topic.  My question is what UCS mode is required to do direct attached storage and zoning on UCS FI?  Thanks for your help.

Sarah

 

Hi Sarah,

       You need your FI in FC switch mode to do direct attached storage and with the release of UCS version 2.1, it is now possible to connect the storage array directly to the Fabric Interconnect (FI) without any upstream storage area network (SAN) switch.

Following link shows configuration sample for the same.

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

 

Thanks,

Jalpa

 

Jorge Guimaraes
Level 1
Level 1

Hello,

My UCS is connected to MDS switch. When I connect single port everything is working, but when I create port-channels (2 ports member) it is not coming up even though configuration looks good.  Am I missing something?

Thank you,

Jorge

 

Hi Jorge, 

This could be because the OUI of your UCS is not included in the MDS firmware version that is running on your MDS. You can run the command below on your UCS to find the OUI of your Fabric Interconnect: 

POD10-B(nxos)# show wwn switch
Switch WWN is 20:00:00:2a:6a:34:02:c0

In this example, the UCS OUI is 00:2a:6a. This OUI is not included in older version of MDS. You can reference the link below to see what version of MDS include this OUI: 

https://tools.cisco.com/bugsearch/bug/CSCtr01652/?reffering_site=dumpcr

Also the same issue may happen on Nexus 5k, here is the link: 

https://tools.cisco.com/bugsearch/bug/CSCty04686/?reffering_site=dumpcr

Also you need to make sure the feature fport-channel-trunk is enabled on your MDS. 

 

Marcelo Vieira
Level 1
Level 1

Hello experts,

We have recently purchased 6248 switch but I don't see any FC port, how do I configure FC ports? thank you for your help.

Marcelo

Hi Marcelo,

          All ports are Unified ports in 6248. You need to select needed ports and convert them into FC ports. In UCS GUI, you can use slider to convert ports. Port mode changes can cause an interruption to the data traffic for the Cisco UCS domain.

Please refer following link for more detail.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/sw/cli/config/guide/2-0/b_UCSM_CLI_Configuration_Guide_2_0/b_UCSM_CLI_Configuration_Guide_2_0_chapter_0101.pdf

Thanks,
Jalpa

Hello,

Can my FCoE uplink interfaces be part of VPC connecting to N5k or N7k?  

Jackson

Hi Jackson, 

vPC is not supported on FCoE uplink between UCS to N5k or N7k. If vPC’s are desired, you can have separate vPC uplinks for your ethernet traffic and separate FCoE link for your FCoE traffic. 

Ali 

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