A big step into the unknonw here for me as I have never used fibre channel before. reading through the dosc iit would seem that it is very similar to SCSI in concept. We have apair of machines currently booting from a RAID array using HVD SCSI. Thepla is to replace this with a fibre channel RAID array, and thus to replace the HVD cards with some fibre channel interface cards, but otherwise keep the setup identical. Does anyone have any pointers to good documentation on this ? Are there any good recommendations for4-STABLE supported cards, and is the fact I want to boot from one going to be an issue ? cheers, -pcf.
On Wed, Nov 12, 2003 at 03:48:55PM +0000, Pete French wrote:> A big step into the unknonw here for me as I have never used fibre channel > before. reading through the dosc iit would seem that it is very similar > to SCSI in concept. We have apair of machines currently booting from > a RAID array using HVD SCSI. Thepla is to replace this with a fibre channel > RAID array, and thus to replace the HVD cards with some fibre channel interface > cards, but otherwise keep the setup identical. > > Does anyone have any pointers to good documentation on this ? Are there > any good recommendations for4-STABLE supported cards, and is the fact I want > to boot from one going to be an issue ?Booting I never tried. But the way forward are the Qlogic cards, driven by the isp(4) driver written by Matt Jacob (mjacob@freebsd.org). The man page lists the supported card models. Wilko -- | / o / /_ _ |/|/ / / /( (_) Bulte wilko@FreeBSD.org
On Wednesday 12 November 2003 09:48 am, Pete French wrote:> A big step into the unknonw here for me as I have never used fibre channel > before. reading through the dosc iit would seem that it is very similar > to SCSI in concept. We have apair of machines currently booting from > a RAID array using HVD SCSI. Thepla is to replace this with a fibre channel > RAID array, and thus to replace the HVD cards with some fibre channel > interface cards, but otherwise keep the setup identical. >Welcome to the world of SAN. :) Someone else has already provided FreeBSD-specific info, here's a few other pieces of the puzzle for you. In attaching a FC RAID array you will be creating a small point-to-point fibre channel network (a small SAN). Internally the array is probably arbitrated-loop, but that should not be a concern to you. Fibre Channel is a networking architecture that allows transport of other protocols, usually SCSI (FCP). Curtis Preston's _Introduction to SAN and NAS_ (published by O'Reilly) and IBM's Redbook (redbooks.ibm.com) _Introduction to SAN_ provide good overviews and more in-depth material should you be interested. -- Jonathan Fosburgh AIX and Storage Administrator UT MD Anderson Cancer Center Houston, TX