[UniMacTech] Re: Fiber Channel - X Serve and Storage Tech (SUN) 2530 San

[Jake Carroll]

Hello Mark,

Perhaps I can help a little here.

There are a couple of things to think about here:

1. The standard Apple FC-FC connectors are what we call shortwave SFP Integrated cables. This means the cable that comes with an FC loaded card will plug straight into SAN fabric switches generally speaking, provided they are capable of using a longwave or shortware SFP/optical trans.

2. These are _very_ standard devices that most SAN switching fabric backplanes have no problems dealing with

3. Electrically, no you aren't going to hurt anything provided the "connector" fits physically (don't use a jack-hammer). The most that can go wrong, providing your fabric zoning is "sane" is that the specific SFP port on the fabric will simply not turn on/will not negotiate light.

We have plugged multiple XRAID units using the old style integrated SFP (white) cables into Brocade and Cisco datacentre switching fabric with no problems in times gone by. Sure, it only negotiates at 2Gb/sec, but we didn't expect any more of it!

One end of a "standard" SFP for LC-LC fibre connections looks like this:

http://www.wave.no/database_images/query?raw=1&query_string=1/13/1/446/350/350

The other end looks like what you see on the end of the Apple-white FC cable. Should be fine ;). Most of them are infact Finisar branded SFP's, which is exactly what Sun certify, coincidentally.

Stuff to keep in mind however:

a) As I said before, make sure your SAN guy has zoned correctly before plugging things in left, right and centre! Bad zoning makes for a sad day in the office and unhappy end users

b) You wish to present some disk from a LUN from the Sun storage, as I understand it. How are you presenting this disk? Will you be formatting it as HFS+? Does the array agree with doing this? UFS? ZFS?


...hope it helps, rests your fears (and doesn't create more!).


Regards,

------
Jake Carroll
Senior Systems Programmer,
The Queensland Brain Institute
UQ
------


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Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 09:48:47 +0800
From: Mark Secker <mark at biz.uwa.edu.au>
Subject: [UniMacTech] 	Fiber Channel, X Serve and Storage Tech (SUN)
	2530 San?
To: University Macintosh Technical Forum <unimactech at auc.edu.au>
Message-ID: <84D8EC36-6E23-4C7C-B630-FA509118B90A at biz.uwa.edu.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes

We have a Storage Tech (Sun) 2530 SAN that our Unix system admin has  
connected via one set of fiber channels using  connector adaptors  
(HBIC) at each end and connected  using a purely fiber optic cable  
between them.
I'm asking him to allow me to plug my xServe directly in to the SAN so  
that we can access the drive  partition we've set up for our mac's  
home drives. However he's seen the Fiber Channel cables that came with  
the xServe that are optical + electrical connectors and is not wanting  
to pug them in to his SAN with out knowing that they won't cause  
issues with his box.

I'm not up to speed with Fiber Channel and not seeing much when  
googling for info about compatibility of Sun/Storage Tech SANs and  
xServe Fiber Channel.

is anyone else using these to pieces of kit using the Apple supplied  
Fiber Channel connector? or is an adaptor required?

________________
mark.secker at uwa.edu.au
Mark Secker (Ba. Bus. IS/IP, ECU)
User Support Officer & Laboratory Manager
Business School IT Services

The University of Western Australia - CRICOS provider number 00126G
M261 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley 6009
Phone 6488 1855, Fax 6488 1055,
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