CentOS - Mar 2009 - connecting 2 servers using an FC card via iSCSI

Hi there,
I have one server acting as a iscsi target running windows storage server r2
sp2 and the other server is running centos as an initiator. They are
connected to a switch over a 1Gbit ethernet connection. the target is a Dell
NF600 and the server running centos is a Poweredge R900.
We want to move this configuration to a FC based installation using a Dell
QLE2462 HBA (this is the hba we can get here).

So, i would like to ask before i make a mistake..... :)

If I purchase an ethernet fiber switch and add a Dell QLE2462 HBA to both
servers and connect the servers to this ethernet switch, will I be able to
use this configuration as iscsi target/initiator?
will i be able to add a new server (initiator) to this configuration?

or the whole thing is totally impossible?


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Erick Perez
Cel +(507) 6675-5083
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Erick Perez wrote:
> If I purchase an ethernet fiber switch and add a Dell QLE2462 HBA to both
> servers and connect the servers to this ethernet switch, will I be able to
> use this configuration as iscsi target/initiator?
No, the QLE2462 HBA is a fiber channel HBA, not a Fiber ethernet
card. Completely different incompatible protocols.

If you want iSCSI HBAs you'll want to look at the Qlogic QLE4062C
1Gbps iSCSI HBAs.

If you want to use fiber channel you should have a fiber channel
array, using Dell as an example something like the AX4-5F would
work. I've never personally seen/heard of someone using fiber channel
to connect two traditional servers to each other.

nate

On Mar 18, 2009, at 6:14 PM, Erick Perez <eaperezh at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi there,
> I have one server acting as a iscsi target running windows storage  
> server r2 sp2 and the other server is running centos as an  
> initiator. They are connected to a switch over a 1Gbit ethernet  
> connection. the target is a Dell NF600 and the server running centos  
> is a Poweredge R900.
> We want to move this configuration to a FC based installation using  
> a Dell QLE2462 HBA (this is the hba we can get here).
>
> So, i would like to ask before i make a mistake..... :)
>
> If I purchase an ethernet fiber switch and add a Dell QLE2462 HBA to  
> both servers and connect the servers to this ethernet switch, will I  
> be able to use this configuration as iscsi target/initiator?
> will i be able to add a new server (initiator) to this configuration?
>
> or the whole thing is totally impossible?
FC != Ethernet and IP doesn't run over FC.

So no this won't work.

You could look at setting up the CentOS box as a FC initiator to  
connect to the fiber storage and bypass the whole storage server mess.

We got rid of MSSS at my work due to it's unreliable performance, and  
the fact that it needed a reboot monthly for security updates which is  
a pain when you have a cluster and a bunch of virtualization hosts  
running off it. The reboot was like power downing 50% of the network  
once a month!

Switched to CentOS as the storage server and didn't look back.

-Ross