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Basic SAN Question...
I am trying to settle an argument at the office and I am hoping that
one of you can answer the question for me. It is fairly basic as I am new to this whole SAN thing. Suppose that I have two windows servers, each connected to a sepearte LUN on an MSA1000 (each server can see his LUN but not the other servers). Both servers and the disk are connected to a SAN switch. Suppose I want to copy data from the SAN LUN on servera to the SAN LUN on server b. Does it work this this servera - SAN - serverb or servera - SAN - LAN - serverb What data goes over the LAN and what goes over the SAN? Thanks Dave |
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Thanks for the quick response. Does it matter how I copy the data.
For example, mapping a drive or ftp? Say I make a request to copy a large file from servera to serverb. Servera says I need the data off the LUN, sends it through the HBA to the FC switch which says hey I know where that LUN is and sends it to the appropriate LUN. Even though servera cannot see the LUN for serverb the switch knows where the LUN is at. Is this correct? Sorry if this is a dumb question. I just want to make sure that I have it. Thanks Again Dave |
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skrev i meddelandet ups.com... I am trying to settle an argument at the office and I am hoping that one of you can answer the question for me. It is fairly basic as I am new to this whole SAN thing. Suppose that I have two windows servers, each connected to a sepearte LUN on an MSA1000 (each server can see his LUN but not the other servers). Both servers and the disk are connected to a SAN switch. Suppose I want to copy data from the SAN LUN on servera to the SAN LUN on server b. Does it work this this servera - SAN - serverb No. or servera - SAN - LAN - serverb Yes. What data goes over the LAN and what goes over the SAN? All data goes across the LAN. Nothing goes over the SAN as I think you mean it, but of course the data gets transferred to/from each server across the LAN and then to/from the MSA1000 over the SAN. All the SAN is that you have (meaning you probably don't have any third-party software or filesystem or some such) is a SCSI bus on a network. Heck, Fibre Channel is a SCSI-3 protocol. Thanks Dave |
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I think you have it wrong- it doesn't use the switch per se, it uses the
LAN- it would be the sanme as copying it from one server to another that was NOT SAN attached. Personally, I jus copy from server to server, I don't use FTP. But that's just me. You aren't getting any more eprformance copying from san disk to san disk than if you were copying local to local. -- Kat MCDBA # ? of Millions What woud you do for a Kit Kat bar? wrote in message oups.com... Thanks for the quick response. Does it matter how I copy the data. For example, mapping a drive or ftp? Say I make a request to copy a large file from servera to serverb. Servera says I need the data off the LUN, sends it through the HBA to the FC switch which says hey I know where that LUN is and sends it to the appropriate LUN. Even though servera cannot see the LUN for serverb the switch knows where the LUN is at. Is this correct? Sorry if this is a dumb question. I just want to make sure that I have it. Thanks Again Dave |
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FTP is much faster then SMB/CIFS while copying major amounts of data from
the server to the server. -- Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP StorageCraft Corporation http://www.storagecraft.com "Kat" kit-kat bar wrote in message ... I think you have it wrong- it doesn't use the switch per se, it uses the LAN- it would be the sanme as copying it from one server to another that was NOT SAN attached. Personally, I jus copy from server to server, I don't use FTP. But that's just me. You aren't getting any more eprformance copying from san disk to san disk than if you were copying local to local. -- Kat MCDBA # ? of Millions What woud you do for a Kit Kat bar? wrote in message oups.com... Thanks for the quick response. Does it matter how I copy the data. For example, mapping a drive or ftp? Say I make a request to copy a large file from servera to serverb. Servera says I need the data off the LUN, sends it through the HBA to the FC switch which says hey I know where that LUN is and sends it to the appropriate LUN. Even though servera cannot see the LUN for serverb the switch knows where the LUN is at. Is this correct? Sorry if this is a dumb question. I just want to make sure that I have it. Thanks Again Dave |
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wrote in message ups.com... Does it work this this servera - SAN - serverb or servera - SAN - LAN - serverb What data goes over the LAN and what goes over the SAN? With two servers each mounting their respective LUNs as local filesystems there is no way for the basic OS to perform anything other than: Lun1(SAN)-Server A -CIFS/NFS- Server B - Lun2(SAN) Direct SAN to SAN copy would require a block level copy and would be done in the array. -- Nik Simpson |
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"Ramesh Pun" wrote in message ... it work this this servera - SAN - serverb And just what mechanism in the OS would that happen, inquiring minds want to know. -- Nik Simpson |
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I guess we need to define what a SAN is then.
For me a SAN is all the fabric components (HBA, switch, storage). The only thing I would correct in that little diagram is make the arrows double headed. serverA - SAN - serverB Now, we can expand the SAN HBA-serverA - Switch - Storage - Switch - HBA-serverB Now, the fact that server A and server B cant see each others storage is secondary. The config is correct. If you wanted to copy data from serverA's LUN to serverB's LUN, you dont necessarily have to go over a LAN link, you could do it with the storage box. HP has business copy, EMC has time finder, I am sure IBM has some other technology as well. "Nik Simpson" wrote in message . .. "Ramesh Pun" wrote in message ... it work this this servera - SAN - serverb And just what mechanism in the OS would that happen, inquiring minds want to know. -- Nik Simpson |
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