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122 DS6000 Series: Concepts and Architecture
7.5 SAN requirements and considerations
The DS6000 series provides a variety of host attachments so that you can consolidate
storage capacity and workloads for open systems hosts and eServer zSeries hosts. The Fibre
Channel adapters of the storage system can be configured to support the Fibre Channel
Protocol (FCP) and fibre connection (FICON) protocol.
You should also keep the following consideration in mind: Fibre Channel SANs can provide
the capability to interconnect open systems and storage in the same network as S/390 and
zSeries host systems and storage.
Single Fibre Channel host adapters can have physical access to multiple Fibre Channel ports
on the storage unit.
Part of the installation planning process is the planning for your SAN. You may already have a
SAN infrastructure with enough unused ports to connect a DS6000, or you might need
additional Fibre Channel switches. If you have switches that operate at 1 Gbps, you might
consider replacing them with 2 Gbps switches. For high availability, you should connect the
DS6000 at least to two different switches (see Figure 7-2).
The same considerations mentioned also apply to HBAs on the host. You might want to
replace 1 Gbps HBAs by 2 Gbps HBAs. For fault tolerance, each server should be equipped
with two HBAs connected to different Fibre Channel switches.
Figure 7-2 SAN environment
For Fibre Channel attachments, you can establish zones to limit the access of host adapters
to storage system adapters. By establishing zones, you reduce the possibility of interactions
between system adapters in switched configurations.
Part of the installation planning is to decide what SAN zones are needed or have to be
modified.
DS6800
Fibre Channel
SAN switches
HBA-1 HBA-2
FC Switch 1
FC Switch 1
server0 server1