Planning management connections

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The ports on the control enclosure have specific connection requirements.

Figure 1 shows a node canister. The numbering of the onboard ports goes from left to right.
Figure 1. Ethernet ports on a canister
Image showing Ethernet ports on a canister
  •  1  Node canister 25 Gbps Ethernet port 1 (logical Port 2)
  •  2  Node canister 25 Gbps Ethernet port 2 (logical Port 3)
  •  3  Node canister USB port
  •  4  Node canister 1 Gbps Ethernet port 3 (logical Port 1)
  •  5  Node canister technician port - do not use for Ethernet network connections.

Management Ethernet connections

Each node canister in a control enclosure provides both a primary and an optional secondary (backup) Ethernet connection for system management. These management ports are used for accessing the management GUI and the service assistant GUI for the node canister. For the IBM® FlashSystem 5600, these ports are:

  • Logical Port 1 or Physical Port 3: 1 GbE RJ45 Primary management port
  • Logical Port 2 or Physical Port 1: 25/10/1 GbE SFP Secondary management port
    Note: Ethernet Logical Port 2 (physical port 1) is primarily used for ethernet I/O, but can be used as an optional secondary management port.

Each node canister also has a Technician Port (denoted by the “cog/settings” symbol) which provides a DHCP service for direct connection to a laptop for initial system setup.

The following Ethernet connections are made to the control enclosure:
  • Each control enclosure requires two Ethernet cables to connect it to an Ethernet switch for management. One cable connects to port 3 of the left node canister, and the other cable connects to port 3 of the right node canister. Both Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) and Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) are supported.
  • Note: For increased redundancy a second Ethernet management connection is supported for each node canister, using Logical port 2 (physical port 1).
  • To ensure management IP failover, the primary management port on each node canister must be connected to the same set of subnets. If used, the secondary management port on each node canister must also be connected to the same set of subnets. However, the secondary management ports do not have to use the same subnets as the primary management ports.
For information on the cable standards required, see Cable reference.

IP address allocation and usage

As you plan your installation, you must consider IP address requirements and service access for the system.

Use Table 1 to consider the TCP/IP address requirements of the system and the requirements to access other services. You must also plan for the IP address allocation, and for the configuration of the Ethernet router, gateway and firewall.
Table 1. Summary of TCP/IP ports and services
Service Traffic direction Protocol Port Service type
Email (SMTP) notification and inventory reports Outbound TCP 25 Optional
SNMP event notification Outbound UDP 162 Optional
Syslog event notification Outbound
TCP
UDP
6514 (TCP)
514 (UDP)
 Optional
IPv4 DHCP (Node service address) Outbound UDP 68 Optional
IPv6 DHCP (Node service address) Outbound UDP 547 Optional
Network time server (NTP) Outbound UDP 123 Optional
SSH for command-line interface (CLI) access Inbound TCP 22 Mandatory
Remote support assistance Outbound TCP 22 Optional
HTTPS for GUI access Inbound TCP 443 Mandatory
Uploading support packages to IBM Outbound TCP 443 Optional
Remote support assistance for HTTPS GUI access Outbound TCP 443 Optional
Remote user authentication service - HTTP Outbound TCP 16310 Optional
Remote user authentication service - HTTPS Outbound TCP 16311 Optional
Remote user authentication service - Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) Outbound TCP 389 Optional
iSCSI Inbound TCP 3260 Optional
iSCSI iSNS Outbound TCP 3260 Optional
IP-based RDMA replication/high availability Inbound and Outbound TCP 4791, 21451, 21452, 21455, and 21456 Optional
IP Partnership management IP communication Inbound and Outbound TCP 3260 Optional
IP Partnership data path connections1 Inbound and Outbound TCP 3265 Optional
REST API access and replication management Inbound TCP 6443 and 7443 Optional
NVMe over TCP Inbound and Outbound TCP 4420 Optional
IP quorum application Inbound and Outbound TCP 1260 Optional
1Ports must be open for IP addresses that are configured for replication and not the system IP address.

For configuration and management, you must allocate an IP address to the system; this IP address is referred to as the management IP address. For extra fault tolerance, you can also configure a second IP address for the second Ethernet port on the node. The addresses must be fixed addresses. If IPv4 and IPv6 are operating concurrently, you must provide an address for each protocol.

Attention: The address for a management IP cannot be the same address that is used for the service IP. Using the same IP address causes communication problems.

Name servers are not used to locate other devices. You must supply the numeric IP address of the device. To locate a device, the device must have a fixed IP address.