SAN Help

[dross_199]

Hi Guys,

 

Need a bit of help I have been tasked with looking for the correct PCI cards that will work with the below SAN and also what cables i need:

 

San: MSA 2052 iscsi 10GB

 

Need the Card for a ML350 Gen 10 to connect to the 10gb iscsi

 

I have spent hours looking for the relevant card and cable I need to connect this san to 1 server for a client. I know that I some people will say I shouldn't be touching what I don't understand but this is for a client and this is how you learn ;D 

 

any help would be a massive help as I need to have somewhat of a proposal ready tomorrow for them.

 

Thanks in advanced

 

David

[Electronics Wizardy]

 this just looks like 10g sfp+(check first)

 

so get a dac cable for a short run, or some trancivers and a fiber cable for a longer run, and a sfp+ 10g card in the server.

[dross_199]

15 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

 this just looks like 10g sfp+(check first)

 

so get a dac cable for a short run, or some trancivers and a fiber cable for a longer run, and a sfp+ 10g card in the server.

Thanks for the reply, when im looking at the sfp 10g card they are considerably cheaper than the ones that i have been looking at. I don't suppose you have a link to any that would work with the SAN above? this is for a client that is around 300+ and numerous servers. Would you recommend anything else?

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, dross_199 said:

Thanks for the reply, when im looking at the sfp 10g card they are considerably cheaper than the ones that i have been looking at. I don't suppose you have a link to any that would work with the SAN above? this is for a client that is around 300+ and numerous servers. Would you recommend anything else?

Basically any will work, if you're mounting the iSCSI block device in the OS all that is required is a IP network connection to the SAN (direct not routed/cross subnet). Mellanox tend to be the best options and are OEM for a decent amount of HPE branded NICs, ConnectX-3/ConnectX-4 will do you fine here.

 

HPE Ethernet 10Gb 2-port 530SFP Adapter 652503-B21 (Cavium 57810S)
HPE Ethernet 10Gb 2-port 562SFP+ Adapter 727055-B21 (Intel X710)
HPE Ethernet 10Gb 2-port 524SFP+ Adapter P08446-B21 (Mellanox CX4LX)
HPE Ethernet 10Gb 2-port 548SFP+ Adapter P11338-B21 (Marvell FastLinQQL41401)

 

Brackets are the actual OEM for each NIC, best to buy an actual HPE supported part though.

 

You should also be plugging the SAN in to a 10Gb switch and the server in to a 10Gb switch, not direct connecting them using a Twinax DAC SFP+ cable. Best to check what the client has so see what you can utilize, do they already have 10Gb switches and is there dedicated VLANs and subnets for storage/iSCSI usage etc.

[Mikensan]

If you're going to use fiber, the only problem I've heard of (but never experienced) is transceivers not being compatible with one another. If you're going to use DAC they're usually terminated already with like transceivers at both ends. I've however mixed cisco transceivers with off-brand ones and with branded HP ones lol.

 

Otherwise which card to get is covered by others in the thread.

[dross_199]

On 6/27/2019 at 11:04 PM, leadeater said:

Basically any will work, if you're mounting the iSCSI block device in the OS all that is required is a IP network connection to the SAN (direct not routed/cross subnet). Mellanox tend to be the best options and are OEM for a decent amount of HPE branded NICs, ConnectX-3/ConnectX-4 will do you fine here.

 

HPE Ethernet 10Gb 2-port 530SFP Adapter 652503-B21 (Cavium 57810S)
HPE Ethernet 10Gb 2-port 562SFP+ Adapter 727055-B21 (Intel X710)
HPE Ethernet 10Gb 2-port 524SFP+ Adapter P08446-B21 (Mellanox CX4LX)
HPE Ethernet 10Gb 2-port 548SFP+ Adapter P11338-B21 (Marvell FastLinQQL41401)

 

Brackets are the actual OEM for each NIC, best to buy an actual HPE supported part though.

 

You should also be plugging the SAN in to a 10Gb switch and the server in to a 10Gb switch, not direct connecting them using a Twinax DAC SFP+ cable. Best to check what the client has so see what you can utilize, do they already have 10Gb switches and is there dedicated VLANs and subnets for storage/iSCSI usage etc.

brill thanks, this san will only be connected to 1 server to start with and potentially 1 additional later down the line. Would that still be alright or will I need a switch regardless? if you what switch?

Edited June 28, 2019 by leadeater
Fixed broken formatting

[leadeater]

9 hours ago, dross_199 said:

brill thanks, this san will only be connected to 1 server to start with and potentially 1 additional later down the line. Would that still be alright or will I need a switch regardless? if you what switch?

If there is a switch that already exists that can be used then do that, ideally there would be two switches and you take a port from that SAN to each switch and then setup multi-pathing on the clients so you have resiliency in the design.

 

Directly connecting 2 servers to a port each on the SAN isn't going to matter a lot if you don't need resiliency or further scalability but that is also something you can address later. Cheaping out on the design isn't gernally a good idea unless you know the client just cannot afford it.