Implement SAN Connectivity in a Unified Computing Environment

One of the sections from the blueprint. Quite a bit of info but I'll try to cram it into one post.

The topics are:

Implement FC ports for SAN Connectivity
Implement VSANs
Implement FC Port Channels
Implement FC Trunking and SAN pinning

Implement FC ports for SAN Connectivity

The 6200 FI's (used in the lab) support unified ports. Unified ports can be used for either Ethernet or FC. The default mode is Ethernet.

Port types (from the UCS config guide)

When the port mode is set to Ethernet, you can configure the following port types:

Server ports
Ethernet uplink ports
Ethernet port channel members
FCoE ports
Appliance ports
Appliance port channel members
SPAN destination ports
SPAN source ports

When the port mode is set to Fibre Channel, you can configure the following port types:

Fibre Channel uplink ports
Fibre Channel port channel members
Fibre Channel storage ports (if direct attached storage)
SPAN destination ports
SPAN source ports

Port Mode Placement

Ethernet ports must be configured in a block starting with the first port and ending in an even numbered port. FC ports must be configured in a block starting from the last Ethernet port and continue through the last port on the module.

Configuring port modes

The port mode is configured from Equipment, Fabric Interconnects, General, the Configure Unified Ports

VSANs
The configuration for VSANs is straight forward. Under the SAN tab, there is a SAN Cloud with the fabrics. There are 3 options. The first is common/global which applies the VSAN to both fabrics. The second option maps a VSAN to a VSAN ID that exists on one fabric (A or B) only. The last is both fabrics configured differently which maps a VSAN to different VSAN ID's on each fabric.

FC Port Channels
FC port-channels are pretty simple to set up. It's important to remember that both the Fibre Channel and Ethernet port-channels work in active mode only so be sure to configure the upstream switch properly. Also, if the native VSAN is anything other than the default VSAN 1, that can be set from the 'show navigator' screen on the port channel. Also ensure that on the upstream MDS that you have set the native VSAN by adding the VSAN to the database for the port-channel interface.

Implement FC Trunking and SAN pinning
FC trunking is a single action on the general tab for the fabric. Don't forget to accompany that command with a corresponding 'fport-channel-trunk' feature on the upstream MDS. Enabling FC uplink trunking is really just a 'fport-channel-trunk' under the hood.