Release Notes
PS Series SAN design
34 Dell PS Series Configuration Guide
8 PS Series SAN design
A PS Series iSCSI SAN can be operated in any network that supports the industry standards and IP subnet
design guidelines described in this section. Because of this flexibility, there are many network design and
configuration choices that can affect SAN performance. The following sections provide details related to
network design and configuration to support the use of a PS Series SAN.
Note: With the addition of FS Series NAS functionality, the PS Series product family now provides an iSCSI
based unified file and block storage platform. A PS Series SAN can now be used to provide block level
access (direct iSCSI access to PS Series arrays) or file system level access (via the FS Series appliance)
using NFS or CIFS protocols and the Dell FluidFS scale-out file system.
Unless otherwise stated, SAN recommendations in this document are applicable to both file and block
environments.
8.1 General requirements
8.1.1 Implementation of standards
PS Series SANs are based on industry standards. The following standards are required to support all host to
target communications and member to member communications in a PS Series SAN:
• IETF Standards
- IETF RFC1122 “Requirements for Internet Hosts – Communications Layers”
- IETF RFC1123 “Requirements for Internet Hosts – Application and Support”
- IETF RFC3270 “Internet Small Computer Systems Interface (iSCSI)”
• IEEE Standards
- 802.1
- 802.3
iSNS support
An Internet Storage Name Service
1
(iSNS) server can support discovery, management and configuration of
group members by dynamically updating information about the iSCSI target names for group volumes. Once
the IP address of an iSNS server is entered in an iSCSI initiator’s configuration utility, the setting is persistent
across initiator sessions. A PS Series group can be configured to register with up to three iSNS servers.
Note: Starting with Firmware V4.1.4, volume and snapshot identifiers are no longer automatically published to
iSNS servers. This applies to new volumes and snapshots as well as volumes and snapshots that existed
before the group was upgraded to V4.1.4.
1
The Internet Storage Name Service (iSNS) specification: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4171