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Home > Archive > Data Storage > September 2004 > Teaming of paths
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| Marcel 2004-09-22, 10:29 pm |
| Hi all,
In a network environment it's possible to team/trunk multiple lines between
switches and/or hosts to one virtual single connection boosting throughput.
Is this also possible in a san environment?
I ask this because I've recently obtained a Dell Powervault 660F wich is
configurable with two controllers (raid) thus giving me two connections.
Would be nice if I can double the bandwidth.
Marcel
| |
| Jesper Monsted 2004-09-22, 10:29 pm |
| "Marcel" <dont@spam.me> wrote in news:cipn0h$91j$1@news.cistron.nl:
> In a network environment it's possible to team/trunk multiple lines
> between switches and/or hosts to one virtual single connection
> boosting throughput. Is this also possible in a san environment?
>
> I ask this because I've recently obtained a Dell Powervault 660F wich
> is configurable with two controllers (raid) thus giving me two
> connections. Would be nice if I can double the bandwidth.
As an end-to-end solution, you'd use multipathing software like powerpath,
veritas dmp, securepath or whatever else you feel like. Between switches
(and yes, i know that wasn't really the question), you can use ISL trunking
which, depending on the switch vendor, behaves in much the same way as
etherchannel on a LAN. On Brocade, one trunk link can move twice the
traffic, even if only one session is running, whereas McData will only do
load balancing by moving several sessions back and forth between the links.
--
/Jesper Monsted
| |
| Toomas Soome 2004-09-22, 10:29 pm |
| Marcel wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> In a network environment it's possible to team/trunk multiple lines between
> switches and/or hosts to one virtual single connection boosting throughput.
> Is this also possible in a san environment?
>
between switches, yes.
> I ask this because I've recently obtained a Dell Powervault 660F wich is
> configurable with two controllers (raid) thus giving me two connections.
> Would be nice if I can double the bandwidth.
>
create 2 luns, bind them to separate controllers and create an raid0
volume in host.
toomas
--
It is now 10 p.m. Do you know where Henry Kissinger is?
-- Elizabeth Carpenter
| |
| Marcel 2004-09-22, 10:29 pm |
|
"Jesper Monsted" <newsspam@rootweiler.dk.invalid> schreef in bericht
news:Xns956BC6F6D82FCnewsspamrootweilerd
k@62.243.74.163...
> "Marcel" <dont@spam.me> wrote in news:cipn0h$91j$1@news.cistron.nl:
>
>
> As an end-to-end solution, you'd use multipathing software like powerpath,
> veritas dmp, securepath or whatever else you feel like. Between switches
> (and yes, i know that wasn't really the question), you can use ISL
trunking
> which, depending on the switch vendor, behaves in much the same way as
> etherchannel on a LAN. On Brocade, one trunk link can move twice the
> traffic, even if only one session is running, whereas McData will only do
> load balancing by moving several sessions back and forth between the
links.
>
> --
> /Jesper Monsted
Does the general multhipathing software use some sort of loadbalancing
between the two or more paths?
Marcel
| |
| Marcel 2004-09-22, 10:29 pm |
|
"Toomas Soome" <Toomas.Soome@microlink.ee> schreef in bericht
news:41506dda$1@news.infonet.ee...
> Marcel wrote:
between[vbcol=seagreen]
throughput.[vbcol=seagreen]
>
> between switches, yes.
>
There is no vendor that has some sort of option to combine two line to one
switch?
>
>
> create 2 luns, bind them to separate controllers and create an raid0
> volume in host.
>
> toomas
> --
> It is now 10 p.m. Do you know where Henry Kissinger is?
> -- Elizabeth Carpenter
That certainly is interesting when using only a few host and you would do
this on all of them. Not when you've got a few more and some of them only
has one single connection. Besides of that, I want to double the bandwidth
to the switch from the disk array, single throughput should be sufficient
for the hosts.
I think it's smarter to give each seperate port on the powervault a
connection to a different switch and equally share the hosts. Or I can use
one switch and create two zones, one powervault port per zone and again an
equal share of hosts among the zones. Any thaughts on this?
| |
| /dev/null 2004-09-22, 10:29 pm |
|
Marcel Wrote:
> "
> Does the general multhipathing software use some sort of loadbalancing
> between the two or more paths?
>
> Marcel
This really depends on the DMP Software. Some uses SCSI Timeouts in
order to detect problems with the link or connection and move new
connections to the other path. Some also provide some round robin
functionality, but Round Robin is just the "lowest possible feature of
loadbalacing" (IMHO).
As far as I know (please tell me I'm wrong and FC Vendors learned from
networking vendors), there is no DMP Software available which really
does loadbalacing based on the current load of the links into the
fabric.
/dev/null
--
/dev/null
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| |
| Andrew Gideon 2004-09-22, 10:29 pm |
| Jesper Monsted wrote:
> Between switches
> (and yes, i know that wasn't really the question), you can use ISL
> trunking which, depending on the switch vendor, behaves in much the same
> way as etherchannel on a LAN.
Does it work that way with cisco switches? A "trunk" circuit carries all
(or a specified list of) VLANs. If you've two "trunk" circuits between a
pair of switches, does that it is trunked automatically cause load sharing?
Is this only ISL, or will .1q trunks behave the same?
- Andrew
| |
| Jesper Monsted 2004-09-22, 10:29 pm |
| "Marcel" <dont@spam.me> wrote in news:ciprdr$e43$1@news.cistron.nl:
> Does the general multhipathing software use some sort of loadbalancing
> between the two or more paths?
Some of it does, yes.
--
/Jesper Monsted
| |
| Jesper Monsted 2004-09-22, 10:29 pm |
| /dev/null <devnull.1cy8ub@no-mx.forums.yourdomain.com.au> wrote in
news:devnull.1cy8ub@no-mx.forums.yourdomain.com.au:
> This really depends on the DMP Software. Some uses SCSI Timeouts in
> order to detect problems with the link or connection and move new
> connections to the other path. Some also provide some round robin
> functionality, but Round Robin is just the "lowest possible feature of
> loadbalacing" (IMHO).
> As far as I know (please tell me I'm wrong and FC Vendors learned from
> networking vendors), there is no DMP Software available which really
> does loadbalacing based on the current load of the links into the
> fabric.
You're wrong 
Powerpath uses latency and other factors to balance load across several
paths to symmetrix or clariion arrays.
--
/Jesper Monsted
| |
| Jesper Monsted 2004-09-22, 10:29 pm |
| Andrew Gideon <cR182Driver45@gideon.org> wrote in
news:13727116.Pdu68J7fUq@no.to.be.used.news.int.tagonline.com:
>
> Does it work that way with cisco switches? A "trunk" circuit carries
> all (or a specified list of) VLANs. If you've two "trunk" circuits
> between a pair of switches, does that it is trunked automatically
> cause load sharing?
>
> Is this only ISL, or will .1q trunks behave the same?
In FC, it's called ISL trunking, but it's basically the same as Cisco
etherchannel (on McData - it's somewhat more intelligent on Brocade). If
you plug in two ISLs between two switches, they will (with some
limitations, at least on Brocade) automatically trunk the link. They use
two quite different methods, but accomplish mostly the same.
--
/Jesper Monsted
| |
| Andrew Gideon 2004-09-22, 10:29 pm |
| Jesper Monsted wrote:
> In FC, it's called ISL trunking,
Ah! I missed that it was FC under discussion. I saw ISL, and I immediately
started thinking "ethernet".
Sorry.
- Andrew
| |
| Marcel 2004-09-22, 10:29 pm |
| "Jesper Monsted" <newsspam@rootweiler.dk.invalid> schreef in bericht
news:Xns956BEE3C9FDE4newsspamrootweilerd
k@62.243.74.163...
> "Marcel" <dont@spam.me> wrote in news:ciprdr$e43$1@news.cistron.nl:
>
> Some of it does, yes.
>
>
> --
> /Jesper Monsted
Hmm.... also interesting, any suggestions which software would do this?
Another idea/question.
When a disk array is connected to a switch with both controllers, will
the switch detect that situation and balance the load between them or is it
a better idea to split it into two zones/switches?
Marcel
| |
| Jesper Monsted 2004-09-22, 10:29 pm |
| Andrew Gideon <cR182Driver45@gideon.org> wrote in
news:3847790.E40EWjU99W@no.to.be.used.news.int.tagonline.com:
> Jesper Monsted wrote:
> Ah! I missed that it was FC under discussion. I saw ISL, and I
> immediately started thinking "ethernet".
Well, this *is* a storage newsgroup ;)
--
/Jesper Monsted
| |
| Jesper Monsted 2004-09-22, 10:29 pm |
| "Marcel" <dont@spam.me> wrote in news:ciseao$h52$1@news.cistron.nl:
>
> Hmm.... also interesting, any suggestions which software would do
> this?
Powerpath, Veritas DMP at least, possibly others.
> Another idea/question.
>
> When a disk array is connected to a switch with both controllers,
> will
> the switch detect that situation and balance the load between them or
> is it a better idea to split it into two zones/switches?
The switch doesn't care. Your multipath software might be able to balance
the load, but that's independant of the zoning.
--
/Jesper Monsted
| |
| Andrew Gideon 2004-09-22, 10:29 pm |
| Jesper Monsted wrote:
> Andrew Gideon <cR182Driver45@gideon.org> wrote in
> news:3847790.E40EWjU99W@no.to.be.used.news.int.tagonline.com:
>
>
> Well, this *is* a storage newsgroup ;)
And I'm here looking for a *N*AS solution. I let my agenda bias my reading
<grin>.
- Andrew
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