[olug] Fibre Channel on Linux

[Andrew Embury]

To be more clear, the management question I had outlined below was more on
methods to expand the Linux Filesystem as more SAN disk is made available
to me by my hosting provider.

Thanks,

Drew

On Wed, 25 Aug 2004, Rod Hurley wrote:

> Most all monitoring software works the same, and works well.  I don't
> have (or hear of) issues with monitoring and management software related
> to FC SANs.  I also have SAN without Linux, but using Netware and
> Micro$oft with it efficiently.  From my experience, I recommend QLOGIC
> for HBA, and I wouldn't think that Linux drivers would make any
> difference in performance.  I have not had a single Qlogic HBA error or
> failure since I set mine up 2 years ago.
>
> Rod Hurley
> Network Administrator
> Tenaska Marketing Ventures
> ph:  402-758-6187
> cell: 402-981-9561
> fx:   402-758-6275
> rhurley at tmvgas.com
>
>
> >>> bbrush at unlnotes.unl.edu 8/25/2004 10:23:46 AM >>>
>
> I haven't done Linux on my SAN yet, but it's on my todo list.
>
> olug-bounces at olug.org wrote on 08/25/2004 10:15:44 AM:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > Is anyone here doing Fibre Channel on Linux?  I'm looking at
> interfacing
> a
> > Compaq Proliant server to an EMC SAN and am wondering what kind of
> results
> > I am going to get.  Items that would be helpful:
> >
> > 1.  HBA you have experience with that work well.
>
> Use whatever is recommended by your vendor.  We use QLogic boards here,
> but
> FC is kind of picky and you don't want to get too far from the vendor
> recommendations or you can wind up paying for it.  FC is not as mature
> as
> SCSI or IDE and fiber optic lines are not as forgiving as UTP CAT5 so
> you
> want to make sure the physical layer is solid.
>
> > 2.  Distribution support (Red Hat Enterprise 3 ES was my leaning)
>
> No idea.  Any distro that has support for your HBA should work.
>
> > 3.  General stability.
>
> Stability in this case is the same as any other situation given the
> OS.
> The only added wrinkle is that your disk sub-system is now much bigger
> and
> therefore you have more points of failure in that sub-system.
>
> > 4.  Tools used to manage, expand, etc.
>
> If you're talking about the SAN management, use whatever the vendor
> provides.  If you're talking about the HBA, it's managed in the BIOS.
> At
> the OS level the SAN disks are just going to look like any normal HD.
>
> The big question mark is the HBA support.  Once you have that the rest
> is
> easy.
>
> Bill
>
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