Can a host be zoned to two Clariions?

Awesome! Thank you so much Dynamox!

Admingirl

admingirl,

zoning a host to multiple storage arrays is no problem. I've even seen posts in this forum where people had Clariions and EVAs attached to the same host. No problem !

What you (obviously) should avoid is host based striping LUNs that come from different arrays.

No problem! Thank you RRR!

Admingirl

You beat me to it. I was distracted by the coffee machine and forgot to press ENTER

And if i remember right, a host can be zoned to 4 EMC arrays max.

i think you also can't connect a host to the same clariion via FC and iSCSI at the same time.

yep  i remember reading that also somewhere..   I think it is from the way PP handles the connection and it cant handle FC and iSCSI at the same time.

Valid Configurations:

1. Host connected to 2xArrays via FC
   
2. Host Connected to 2xArrays via iSCSI
   

Invalid Configurations:

1. Host connected to same array via iSCSI & FC
   
2. Host connect to 2xArrays via FC & iSCSI (same or different arrays)
   

Caveats:

1. CX3 & CX4 (NMP) using ALUA on the CX4 and not on the CX3 - causes random drops of LUNs.
   
2. ESX Mapped To Multiple Arrays - Possible, just don't use ALUA unless you are using PowerPath/VE.
   

Suggestions:

1. Use the Host Agent and update it with both arrays in the config.
   
2. Only use one to one zoning.
   
3. Don't extend Logical Disks to make them attached to both arrays - make sure your system admins know this.
   

Hope that helps.

Tkjoffs,

I will look for the document but im pretty sure it is 4 arrays by fc per host max.  I remember that from my EMCIE test and i currently have all my hosts zoned to 3 clariions now (CX380, CX4-240, CX4-480)

We also have a 20 node ESX vSphere cluster that is mapped to those 3 same arrays using ALUA (RR policy) and we dont use Powerpath and have no problems

just my 2 cents:)

i can't talk about the agent because we don't install navi agent (manual registration only) but as far as zoning is concerned, i personally do not add multiple targets to one zone, let alone targets from different storage arrays. There are new zoning features these days (Cisco SmartZoning) that allow you to add multiple targets into one zone yet prevent them from logging in into each other. (SANCopy or OpenReplicator)

i don't see any issues with that, make sure multipathing is configured properly to address both arrays.

Thanks for the followup.

if i were to connect a unix system to a clariion and a vnx, are there any special steps?  is it just create the lun, add it to the storage group and set the zoning then reboot?

we do the zoning with brocade switches.

At the moment a maximum of 4 arrays is supported per host. In the Student Reference Guide it's described as a host can be part of up to 4 Storage Groups and since a host can only be in 1 SG per array, this means there can only be 4 arrays as a maximum.