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FS8600 convert/enable Iscsi Fabric
So we inherited a FS8600 with an acquisition we made. . Our shop is all iSCSI SAN and playing with this unit, wondering if it can be converted to Iscsi. i see in some sheets that it 'Is not supported'. . well outside of support or not, can this be done ? Right now in the CLI, under fabric - all i see enabled is FC. . so wondering if this is something that can be done, or whether an upgrade of firmware will do this or not. . . and yes, Im willing to sacrifice my status to "no longer supported" to do this if that will help..Thanks for any help.
DELL-Sam L
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April 17th, 2018 06:00
Hello edefang,
With an FS8600 you can have the following setups:
1Gb Ethernet client connectivity with 8Gb Fibre Channel back‑end connectivity to the Storage Center
10Gb Ethernet client connectivity with 8Gb Fibre Channel back‑end connectivity to the Storage Center
10Gb Ethernet client connectivity with 10Gb Ethernet iSCSI back‑end connectivity to the Storage Center
iSCSI is only supported on the backend connection to the storage center.
I can send you an email & if you can provide me your service tag I can look and see which configuration you have.
Please let us know if you have any other questions.
edfang
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April 17th, 2018 10:00
Sam - sent the service tag. I believe we still have hardware support on this but software support is separate (didnt know they were even separate but its listed that way). We have the 10gb front end/8gb FC back end.
but the 10gb front end with the 10gb iscsi back end configuration end looks to be the exact same configuration as the 10gb/8G FC but just without the FC card in slot 3. So wondering if the 8600 can be enabled to just use iscsi on the back end and NOT use FC at all. I know the docs say conversion is not supported, but trying to determine if this can be done, supported or not :-).
Would rather not go down the path of enabling a FC fabric off the storage SAN just to get this NAS side working if possible. And just checked that the compellent wont use the Chelsio 10gb connections for FCOE. I guess it has to be an emulex or qlogic or something that it wants to use Might have to ask you the partnumber for FCOE for compellent SC devices next. . ...
DELL-Sam L
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April 17th, 2018 14:00
Hello edefang,
So, I did some checking on your FS8600 you can’t convert your FC backend ports to iSCSI. When the FS8600 system are purchased you must select which backend connections that you need, & the backplane is configured for that.
Please let us know if you have any other questions.