Connecting Fabric Interconnect with MDS

Question

Dear Team,
Kindly share how to configure connectivity between Fabric Interconnect and MDS
what are the steps to be followed in establishing a successful connection between FI and MDS
We have a tape library from IBM and trying to connect the same to FI via MDS and want this Tape library to be detected on the guest VM running windows 2008 on Esxi( Service profile with 2 vhba already added),we are trying using Fibre connectivity.
Also please advice in which mode should we keep the FI (FC switching,end host etc)
Thanks and Regards
Jose

Answer 1

Hi Jose,
The common steps to configure FC on FI and MDS as following :
1. FI configured in NPV mode, ensure that all FC uplinks and vHBA of Blades have been assigned on correct VSAN
    Verify if vHBA Flogi into the FI
    show npv flogi-table
    show npv status
Example
FI-A(nxos)# sh npv flogi-table
SERVER                                                                  EXTERNAL
INTERFACE VSAN FCID             PORT NAME               NODE NAME       INTERFACE
vfc703    10   0x330001 20:00:00:cc:1e:dc:01:0a 20:00:00:25:b5:00:00:03 San-po102
vfc711    10   0x330002 20:00:00:cc:1e:dc:02:0a 20:00:00:25:b5:00:00:02 San-po102
Total number of flogi = 2.
FI-A(nxos)# sh npv status
npiv is enabled
disruptive load balancing is disabled
External Interfaces:
====================
  Interface: san-port-channel 102, State: Up
        VSAN:   10, State: Up, FCID: 0x330000
  Number of External Interfaces: 1
Server Interfaces:
==================
  Interface: vfc703, VSAN:   10, State: Up
  Interface: vfc711, VSAN:   10, State: Up
  Number of Server Interfaces: 2
2. Enable NPIV mode on MDS, configure the link to FI as F port. Assign this port into correct VSAN
    FI will become Node proxy, so verify if all vHBA have been detect on Upstream NPIV switch
SW2(config)# sh npiv status
NPIV is enabled
SW2(config)# sh flogi database
INTERFACE        VSAN    FCID           PORT NAME               NODE NAME      
San-po102        10    0x330000  24:66:00:2a:6a:05:e9:00 20:0a:00:2a:6a:05:e9:01
San-po102        10    0x330001  20:00:00:cc:1e:dc:01:0a 20:00:00:25:b5:00:00:03
                           [BLADE1-SAN-A]
San-po102        10    0x330002  20:00:00:cc:1e:dc:02:0a 20:00:00:25:b5:00:00:02
                           [BLADE2-SAN-A]
3. Configure zoning on the MDS (to make sure whether the issue on zoning or not, you can configure the default zone to permit)
Example : zone default-zone permit vsan 1
Verify the zoning on Upstream NPIV switch
SW2(config)# SH ZONESet active vsan 10
zoneset name ZONESET-VSAN10 vsan 10
  zone name INE-VSAN10 vsan 10
  * fcid 0x330001 [device-alias BLADE1-SAN-A]
  * fcid 0x330002 [device-alias BLADE2-SAN-A]
  * fcid 0x2a0000 [device-alias FC-SAN10]
4. Ensure that vHBA of BLADE had been discovered on the storage device. Configure LUN masking on the storage
I really don't have enough knowledge of VMware hahaha.....so can't help for troubleshooting the VM....Really sorry
Thanks,
Gofi