quote:

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Originally posted by James Grey
I've been given the following hardware:

(5) Generic whitebox 800mhz PCs with 512 memory and 9GB HDD
(5) Emulex LP6000 fibre channel HBA (copper)
(5) QLogic QLA2100 fibre channel HBA (copper)

(2) Giganet CLAN5000 8-port fibre channel switch

(2) Dell Powervault 51F 8-port fibre channel switch with copper GBIC

(1) Dell Powervault 630F with ten (10) 9GB drives
Note: This is the 630F, NOT the 650F

A box of cables to capable of hooking anything to anything in any
combination AND the Dell Powervault CD-ROM 3 that has all of the
drivers for the Dell stuff.


Question: I'm setting up a lab to learn fibre channel and SAN
technology and want to perform the following activities:

1. I want to hook a PC with HBA directly up to the Powervault 630F,
essentially using it as an external drive. I would like to use Windows
XP Professional, but can use either Windows 2000 Professional or
Server if I have to.

Can the Powervault 630F be used directly as a storage device, or will
I have to EBay a Powervault 650F and use the 630F merely as an
expansion to the 650F?

2. Next, I want to plug a number of Windows workstations - and
possible a Sun workstation or two - into one of the switches I have so
that they can share a common storage device.

Should I go the Emulex LP6000/CLAN5000 route, or use the QLogic
QLA2100/Powervault 51F combinations instead? While I *am* RTFM and
intend to do so even more, is there any special I need to know e.g
will I need more gear or special software that I don't already have?

3. After I've accomplished this, I would like to load Windows 2003 EE,
or Windows 2000 AS on four of the boxes. I would then like to cluster
the boxes together in pairs, like so:

____________ ____________ ____________ ____________
| | | | | | | |
| Server 1 | | Server 2 | | Server 3 | | Server 4 |
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|HBA1 HBA2 | |HBA1 HBA2 | |HBA1 HBA2 | |HBA1 HBA2 |
|__________| |__________| |__________| |__________|


____________ ____________
| Switch 1 | | Switch 2 |
____________ ____________
| |
| __________ |
| | | |
|_____________| 630F |_____________|
| |
| |
|________|



HBA1 of each server is attached to Switch1, while HBA2 of each server
is attached to Switch2. This is to set up a high-availability
configuration.

Question: Again, is there anything special I'll need to know before
proceeding with this? I understand that the Powervault 650F is NOT
supported in Windows 2003 Server, so I'll go with Windows 2000 AS if
necessary.

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