Installing the Fibre Channel HBAs

For dual-HBA configurations, it is recommended that you install the Fibre Channel HBAs on separate peripheral component interconnect (PCI) buses. Placing the adapters on separate buses improves availability and performance.

For more information about your system's PCI bus configuration and supported HBAs, see the Dell Cluster Configuration Support Matrix on the Dell High Availability website at www.dell.com/ha.

Installing the Fibre Channel HBA Drivers

For more information, see the EMC documentation that is included with your HBA kit.

For more information about installing and configuring Emulex HBAs and EMC-approved drivers, see the Emulex support website located at www.emulex.com or the Dell Support website at support.dell.com.

For more information about installing and configuring QLogic HBAs and EMC-approved drivers, see the QLogic support website at www.qlogic.com or the Dell Support website at support.dell.com.

For more information about supported HBA controllers and drivers, see the Dell Cluster Configuration Support Matrix on the Dell High Availability website at www.dell.com/ha.

Implementing Zoning on a Fibre Channel Switched Fabric

A Fibre Channel switched fabric consists of one or more Fibre Channel switches that provide high-speed connections between servers and storage devices. The switches in a Fibre Channel fabric provide a connection through inbound and outbound points from one device (sender) to another device or switch (receiver) on the network. If the data is sent to another switch, the process repeats itself until a connection is established between the sender and the receiver.

Fibre Channel switches provide you with the ability to set up barriers between different devices and operating environments. These barriers create logical fabric subsets with minimal software and hardware intervention. Similar to subnets in the client/server network, logical fabric subsets divide a fabric into similar groups of components, regardless of their proximity to one another. The logical subsets that form these barriers are called zones.

Dell CX4 manual Installing the Fibre Channel HBAs, Installing the Fibre Channel HBA Drivers