From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Nov 12 09:57:49 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9B65116A4CE for ; Wed, 12 Nov 2003 09:57:49 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.mdacc.tmc.edu (mail.mdanderson.org [143.111.251.38]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7C64043F3F for ; Wed, 12 Nov 2003 09:57:46 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from syjef@mdanderson.org) Received: from ([143.111.64.231]) by mail.mdacc.tmc.edu (InterScan E-Mail VirusWall Unix); Wed, 12 Nov 2003 11:57:43 -0600 (CST) From: Jonathan Fosburgh Organization: UT MD Anderson Cancer Center To: Pete French , stable@FreeBSD.ORG Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 11:57:41 -0600 User-Agent: KMail/1.5.4 References: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200311121157.41653.syjef@mdanderson.org> Subject: Re: Fibrechannel support in 4.9 ? X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 17:57:49 -0000 On Wednesday 12 November 2003 09:48 am, Pete French wrote: > A big step into the unknonw here for me as I have never used fibre channel > before. reading through the dosc iit would seem that it is very similar > to SCSI in concept. We have apair of machines currently booting from > a RAID array using HVD SCSI. Thepla is to replace this with a fibre channel > RAID array, and thus to replace the HVD cards with some fibre channel > interface cards, but otherwise keep the setup identical. > Welcome to the world of SAN. :) Someone else has already provided FreeBSD-specific info, here's a few other pieces of the puzzle for you. In attaching a FC RAID array you will be creating a small point-to-point fibre channel network (a small SAN). Internally the array is probably arbitrated-loop, but that should not be a concern to you. Fibre Channel is a networking architecture that allows transport of other protocols, usually SCSI (FCP). Curtis Preston's _Introduction to SAN and NAS_ (published by O'Reilly) and IBM's Redbook (redbooks.ibm.com) _Introduction to SAN_ provide good overviews and more in-depth material should you be interested. -- Jonathan Fosburgh AIX and Storage Administrator UT MD Anderson Cancer Center Houston, TX