Installation guide
Table Of Contents
- Contents
- Using UNIX Commands
- Typographic Conventions
- Shell Prompts
- Related Documentation
- Accessing Sun Documentation Online
- Sun Welcomes Your Comments
- New Features
- Features, Benefits, and Products
- SAN 4.0 Device Names
- On-Demand Node Creation
- Fabric Connection of Hosts
- Cascading of Switches
- Higher Realized Bandwidth
- Support of Multiple Protocols
- Support for More, Heterogeneous Storage Devices
- Support for New Hardware and Software
- Software and Hardware Upgrade
- Building Blocks for More Complex Topologies
- Overall Installation Order
- Configuring the Switch Ethernet Port
- Installing SAN Software for the First Time
- Upgrading Existing SAN Software
Chapter 1 Introduction 3
On-Demand Node Creation
The number of storage devices that can be attached to a host can grow to the
thousands with the advent of SANs with native Fabric connectivity. Probing all these
devices at boot time and creating device nodes can increase the boot time greatly. In
addition, a host might not need access to all of the storage devices it can access.
The Sun StorEdge SAN 4.0 Release software no longer creates device nodes for every
storage device attached. Instead, device nodes are created on demand by the
administrator using the cfgadm utility. The device nodes, once created, are
persistent accross reboots. The cfgadm utility, which provides on-demand node
creation, is described in greater detail in manpage
cfgadm_fp (1M).
Fabric Connection of Hosts
Hosts can connect to switches in a Fabric topology, using F_Ports, allowing
construction of scalable, high performing SANs.
Cascading of Switches
Switches can be cascaded to increase the distance between ports available in a zone
and across the entire SAN. Cascading of switches allows for distances of up to ten
kilometers between ports, supporting highly available, disaster-tolerant
configurations.
Higher Realized Bandwidth
Host connections to switch Fabric connections (F-Ports) and InterSwitch Links (ISLs)
are full duplex connections. On a two gigabit Fibre Channel link, this can provide an
aggregate four gigabits per second of bandwidth when I/Os are flowing in both
directions.
Support of Multiple Protocols
The Sun StorEdge SAN 4.0 product supports both SCSI (FCP) and IP(FCIP) over
Fibre Channel. This allows both storage and networking applications to work on the
SAN and minimizes the need for multiple networks.