Planning for system connections within the rack

The two Fibre Channel switches that are preinstalled in the FlashSystem 9500R rack provide a dedicated, dual-redundant fabric for the preinstalled control enclosures.

Each node canister is connected to four (eight per enclosure) of the available switch ports, which are shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2 for different switch options.
Figure 1. Fibre Channel ports in the IBM SAN24B-6 switches
Graphic showing Fibre Channel ports in the IBM SAN24B-6 switches.
Figure 2. Fibre Channel ports in the IBM SAN32C-6 switches
Graphic showing Fibre Channel ports in the IBM SAN32C-6 switches.

Any unused ports of the switches are reserved for control enclosures that you might add later.

For connections to hosts and other storage, plan to use the second adapter slot of each node canister to connect each control enclosure to an external SAN or directly to hosts. Ensure that you have the correct number and length of cables for connecting control enclosure ports to the external SAN or directly to hosts.

Plan for connections to an IP network that is used to manage the storage devices on your SAN.
  • Provide Ethernet port 1 of each IBM® FlashSystem 9500 node canister with a Service IP configuration and record the IP addresses in the Planning worksheets.
  • Provide 1 or 2 system IP addresses through which the system is managed. Refer to the Planning management connections topic to plan these connections, then record the connections in the .
  • Provide each Fibre Channel switch with an IP configuration to connect it to the management network. Record the IP configuration in the .
  • You have the option of providing each PDU with an IP configuration for remote power management and monitoring, as described in Setting up power monitoring using the PDU+ (Customer task). Record the IP configuration in the .