Dell F-Series manual SAN-Attached Clusters

SAN-Attached Clusters

SAN-attached clusters are cluster configurations in which you cable redundant Fibre Channel HBAs to a redundant Fibre Channel switch fabric. You make the connection to the storage system through the switch fabric. SAN-attached configurations can share certain resources with other servers, storage systems, and backup systems on the SAN.

Figure 1-4 shows how a SAN-attached PowerEdge Cluster F-Series configuration uses three networking segments: public network, private network, and SAN. Each seg- ment may vary in components and complexity.

public	Public LAN
network
PowerEdge	PowerEdge
server	server
private network
(cluster interconnect)
PowerVault Fibre Channel switch	PowerVault Fibre
	Channel switch
Fibre Channel bridge

PowerVault 130T	PowerVault
	storage system

storage area network

Figure 1-4. How a SAN-Attached PowerEdge Cluster Uses Network- ing Segments

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Public network — A public network connects cluster nodes to the client network. This network consists of devices such as Ethernet NICs installed in the cluster nodes.

Private network (node-to-node cluster interconnect) — A dedicated network that connects the servers to each other. The primary function of the private network in a cluster configuration is to pass heartbeat information that allows each cluster node to monitor the health of the other cluster node.

support.dell.com Dell PowerEdge Cluster F-Series SAN Guide 1-5