Planning for I/O connections
Plan to order the appropriate adapters for your FlashSystem control enclosure so that it is compatible with your networking topology and provides the appropriate connection capability.
The control enclosure contains two node canisters. Each node canister has four PCIe interface slots for host adapter cards.
Important: Both node canisters
in a control enclosure (I/O group) must be configured with the same adapters.
Table 1 provides
examples of the connection types and the alternative connection methods if alternative connection
methods are available.
| Functionality | Network speeds supported | Adapter | Host I/O | System to system | Storage virtualization |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fibre Channel SAN (SCSI) | 64 Gb, 32 Gb, 16 Gb | Adapter: 4-port | yes | yes | yes |
| Fibre Channel SAN (FC-NVMe) | 64 Gb, 32 Gb, 16 Gb | Adapter: 4-port | yes | no | no |
| Ethernet (iSCSI) | 100 Gb, 40 Gb | Adapter: 2-port | yes | no | no |
| 25 Gb, 10 Gb | Adapter: 4-port | yes | yes | yes | |
| Ethernet (NVMe/TCP) | 100 Gb, 40 Gb | Adapter: 2-port | yes | yes | no |
| 25 Gb, 10 Gb | Adapter: 4-port | yes | yes | no |
Note: Ethernet adapter port speed depends on transceiver installation. For more
information on the adapter, see Cable reference.
Connecting two control enclosures directly with Fibre Channel cables
Two control enclosures can be directly connected to form a partnership (for policy-based high availability, migration or replication).
It is best for reliability, availability, and serviceability for control enclosures to communicate with each other through network switches. However, they can be directly connected with Fibre Channel (FC) cables, if needed.
Each node canister must have at least two paths to each node canister in the other control
enclosure. This means that at least 8 Fibre Channel cables are needed and at least four Fibre
Channel ports on each node canister will be used. Table 2 shows an example
of Fibre Channel connections between the enclosures.
| Control enclosure 1 | Control enclosure 2 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FC Cable | Node Canister | FC Port | Node Canister | FC Port |
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| 4 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| 7 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 4 |
| 8 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 4 |