HP StorageWorks XPath OS 7.4.X Administrator Guide (AA-RVHDD-TE, February 2006)

XPath OS 7.4.x administrator guide 59
There are some devices that do not support the ELS ECHO request. In these cases, the device either
does not respond to the request or sends an ELS reject. When a device does not respond to the ELS
request, further debugging is required; however, do not assume that the device is not connected to the
Fibre Channel.
For details about the fcPing command, see the HP StorageWorks Fabric OS command reference guide.
Connecting to McDATA SANs
XPath OS 7.4.x furnishes the MP Router with the ability to connect to McDATA fabrics in McDATA Open
mode. Consult the following sections:
• Connectivity features, next
• Supported modes, page 59
• Configuring the fabrics for interconnectivity, page 61
Connectivity features
XPath OS 7.4.x lets you connect an HP fabric to a McDATA fabric. Because of the high degree of
connectivity HP provides, the devices across the remote fabrics can be shared.
Interconnectivity benefits
Connected SANs provide additional functionality not possible with segregated SANs. Some of these
include:
• Island consolidation—Use the XPath OS 7.4.x MP Router to connect isolated McDATA and HP Fabric
and share devices.
• Backup consolidation—Consolidate backup solutions across HP and McDATA fabrics.
• Manageable large scale storage network—Use the XPath OS MP Router to localize traffic while
connecting devices in the meta-SAN. This provides a large number of fabrics with a large number of
devices.
• Sharing across a FCIP link—Share devices between HP and McDATA fabric over campus Ethernet or
over long-distance IP links beyond 1000 km.
• Sharing across a long-distance FC link—Share devices between HP fabrics over long-distance FC links
as far as 300 km.
• LUN sharing—Use a high-end RAID array connected to a McDATA director to share targets with an HP
fabric; just connect one McDATA director port to an MP Router EX_Port and the one EX_Port to the HP
fabric.
Connectivity
Check for the latest list of tested and approved equipment, see the HP StorageWorks SAN Design Guide at
http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storageworks/san/documentation.html
.
Scalability
The connectivity limitations of a meta-SAN comprising HP and McDATA fabrics are defined on each side
by the scalability of the individual fabric.
Every EX_Port connected to a McDATA fabric uses one domain ID per link. This can potentially cause
problems because McDATA supports of a maximum of 31 domains in a fabric (in McDATA Fabric 1.0
mode). One translation domain per edge fabric is also created.
Check for the latest list of tested and approved equipment, see the HP StorageWorks SAN Design Guide at
http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storageworks/san/documentation.html
.
See the McDATA fabric documentation for McDATA scalability limitations.
Supported modes
XPath OS 7.4.x supports connectivity with McDATA Open mode. To allow interconnectivity with McDATA
SANs, the CLI command portCfgExPort uses the -m parameter to indicate the connectivity mode. Valid
parameters are described in Table 6.