Setup Guide

Fibre Channel SAN Guidelines
This section describes the best practices for attaching hosts to a PowerStore cluster in a highly available resilient and optimal
Fibre Channel SAN.
Recommended Configuration Values Summary
The following table summarizes the recommended configuration values related to Fibre Channel SAN.
Validation Impact Severity Refer to Section
Use two separate fabrics. Redundancy Mandatory Recommended Zoning
Configuration for Fibre
Channel
Each host should be zoned to both nodes of each
appliance.
Redundancy Mandatory Minimal Zoning Configuration
for Fibre Channel
Maximum number of paths per appliance per
volume per host: 8
Performance Warning Recommended Zoning
Configuration
Recommended number of paths per volume per
host: 4
Performance Warning Recommended Zoning
Configuration
Link speed should be consistent across all paths
to the PowerStore cluster per single host or a
cluster of hosts.
Performance Warning Recommended Zoning
Configuration
Balance the hosts between the nodes of the
appliance to provide a distributed load across all
target ports.
Performance Recommended Recommended Zoning
Configuration
Maximum ISL Hops: 2 Performance Recommended Recommended Zoning
Configuration for Fibre
Channel
Fibre Channel SAN Configuration Limitations
Review these limitations when configuring hosts with PowerStore storage using either SCSI Fibre Channel (SCSI-FC) or NVMe
over Fibre Channel (NVMe-FC):
NOTE: NVMe-FC is supported with PowerStore OS version 2 or later.
● Direct-attach storage (DAS) is supported for SCSI-FC.
● Direct attach storage is not supported for NVMe-FC.
● NVMe-FC requires NPIV to be enabled at the switch level (NPIV is enabled by default on PowerStore FC ports).
● If NPIV is disabled on the switch and the administrator wants to enable NPIV on the port for NVMe-FC to work, it is required
to disable and then reenable the port at the switch.
Minimal Zoning Configuration for Fibre Channel
To prevent a host path failure due to a single node failure, make sure to maintain redundancy.
● A PowerStore appliance contains two nodes.
● A host must be zoned at minimum with one path to each node for redundancy.
NOTE:
The diagrams throughout this chapter illustrate possible implementations of these guidelines. Other possible
implementations are not illustrated.
Best Practices for Storage Connectivity 9