Q-Logic 8100 SERIES manual Boot-from-SAN Configuration, Boot-from-SAN Topologies

7–Configuring FCoE in a Windows Environment Boot from SAN

Confirm the following:

The adapter port has exclusive access to this LUN.

The LUN host type matches the operating system that is to be installed on this LUN.

Each server must have its own dedicated boot LUN. Two servers cannot share the same boot LUN.

Boot-from-SAN Configuration

Boot-from-SAN requires the configuration of the QLogic 8100 Series Adapter, the FCoE switch, and the storage array. How you connect these SAN components is determined by the level of redundancy you require. There are minor differences when configuring the QLogic 8100 Series Adapter for boot-from-SAN between servers that support BIOS and those that support UEFI.

The following subsections describe how to configure the QLogic 8100 Series Adapter and SAN components for boot-from-SAN. The following summarizes the configuration process:

1.Set the boot order to disable boot-from-local-disk, or disconnect the internal hard drives.

2.Configure a single path to the storage array when installing Microsoft Windows. For multiple adapter port configurations (for redundancy), connect only one adapter port to the SAN during installation. The same guidance applies to the storage controller ports.

3.Enable the adapter port BIOS.

4.Specify a boot LUN using the QLogic CNA Fast!UTIL BIOS configuration utility.

5.Boot from the optical drive. Install media/PXE boot, and then install the operating system.

6.During the operating system installation process, select the boot LUN as the device on which to install the operating system.

7.Enable multipath (MPIO) configuration on the server after installing the operating system.

Boot-from-SAN Topologies

One of the benefits of SAN adoption, and in turn, boot-from-SAN, is high availability, which is not easily achieved in a local boot scenario. Before configuring boot-from-SAN, you must understand and finalize the level of fault tolerance and high availability required for boot-from-SAN installations. The following sections describe two boot-from-SAN topologies: single-path configuration (least fault tolerant) and multipath configuration (most fault tolerant).

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