Hi Ritu,

Welcome to EMC Community Forum.

Please refer the below mentioned link for complete information about VNX array( Block and File). I guess this should help you.

https://mydocuments.emc.com/

Regards,

Suman.

1) What is an interface in vnx nas......is it Switch or any server or what ......?

The interface type is server NIC.

The interfaces support EtherChannel , LACP ,FSN.

2) What do we mean by Device...how is it different than interface ...?

Device is the physical interface,and you can create a logistic interface.The logistic interface support EtherChannel ,LACP and FSN.

3) and what is routes...?

If your server ip netmask and nas server (interface or devce) ip netmask are difference, then you must configure route(gateway),server access to nas server.

Hi,

I am specially looking at these terms from VNX NAS perspective......?

When you create an interface on vnx (let's say 5700), you choose the IP address for this interface...which device's IP address is that .......? I'm asking these things keeping in my Unisphere GUI....

"Device is the physical interface,and you can create a logistic interface.The logistic interface support EtherChannel ,LACP and FSN." I did not understand this...?

"If your server ip netmask and nas server (interface or devce) ip netmask are difference, then you must configure route(gateway),server access to nas server." Here you are talking about server but I am looking for vnx nas routes on Unisphere. ?

Hi Suman,

I have gone through few documents but they look confusing to me. That's why i am here. If you experts could explain it a bit in depth, will be appreciable.

Regards

Ritu

Online Help in Unisphere itself provides pretty good explanation, have you tried it ?

Please see the VNX networking and the VNX networking high availability manuals from support.emc.com

They explain this in detail

Basically an interface is a logical construct that has an IP configuration

Devices are Ethernet level and either physical (port) or trunks/FSN

A device can have multiple interfaces – usually separated by VLAN tagging

When you create an interface on vnx (let's say 5700), you choose the IP address for this interface...which device's IP address is that .......? I'm asking these things keeping in my Unisphere GUI....

In this context, you're taking a physical interface (a 1GbE interface, 10GbE interfac, etc.) the VNX datamover (NAS) will use for sending traffic to clients.  For example, I could setup the physical interface "cge0" (a copper, 1GbE interface) and call it "SRVR_A" and set it to IP address 10.10.100.2, then setup a different physical interface, say, "cge1" (another copper, 1GbE interface, physically separate from cge0) called "SRVR_B" and set it to IP address 10.10.100.3, etc.  Each IP interface is separate from the other - I could host different NFS and CIFS shares on each IP interface.

"Device is the physical interface,and you can create a logistic interface.The logistic interface support EtherChannel ,LACP and FSN." I did not understand this...?

The VNX supports different link aggregation techniques, such as LACP, EtherChannel and FSN (Fail-Safe Network).  These techniques let you combine multiple physical interfaces (cge0, cge1, fxg0, etc.) into a logical interface.  In my example above, I could combine cge0 and cge1 in an LACP group, and get greater redundancy and performance than I would with any single interface.  Once I've created a logical interface (an LACP or EtherChannel), I can then create mutlple virtual interfaces.  So, if I combined cge0 and cge1 into a new, logical interface, LACP1, I can then create multiple interfaces that share the physical ports cge0 and cge1.  So, I could create the "SRVR_A" and "SRVR_B" interfaces from my example above, but now I could create "SRVR_C" and SRVR_D" with IPs 10.10.100.4 and 10.10.100.5.  Why?  Because I can keep creating more and more virtual interfaces on top of the logical interface LACP1.

"If your server ip netmask and nas server (interface or devce) ip netmask are difference, then you must configure route(gateway),server access to nas server." Here you are talking about server but I am looking for vnx nas routes on Unisphere. ?

This is basic networking.  If I want SRVR_B to have the IP address 10.202.10.2, I must ensure I have a network route set for that subnet.  You can find this in Unisphere in the Networking section.

If you're new to VNX, I highly recommend spending some time on the EMC Community and viewing some of the VNX configuration videos for Unisphere.  This will walk you through many of the steps you're trying to understand.  Once you understand the basics, you can move on to the actual documentation.  And I highly recommend reading the documentation.  There is an EMC PDF for every major feature of the product that goes into great detail of what each command and function does.  If you still have questions after reading the documentation, post your questions here - there are plenty of people who can help!

Hope this helps!

Karl

Hi Karl & Rainer,

Thanks a lot for your answer & explanation. So what I have understood is this : An interface is the port on Data Mover from where the data is shared to servers. We create an aggregation of ports & then create different logical interfaces on it for further use. Am I right ? Or does this interface mean to be the port on SP modules ? Please let me know...

Thanks a lot

Your understanding is correct Ritu. The interface device is on the data mover, you may create trunk or FSN for high availability using more than one physical ports. And then create the logical interfaces (IP Address) on them which will be used for Network File Access. And please understand the SPs are for the Block access which goes to the SAN switches.

Trust you are becoming a VNX expert now

Cheers,
Sandip

Thank you

Please do get the manuals for VNX file from support.emc.com – even if you just read the few pages of them that are called “Concepts” then you should have a basic understanding of the NAS part

Hello experts,

Thanks for helping me & I'm sorry for disturbing you. What I have gone through a document & understood that when we zone NAS in a unified system we zone through an Ethernet Switch. These switches are zoned to Data Movers ports via Ethernet Cables. Am I right ??

Kindly help me if I am wrong.

Thanks to all of you in Advance.

there is no such thing as zoning in Ethernet world, FC only.

Closest thing would be NFS export options – which hosts are allowed to access

Or separation based on VLANs

Thank you Dynamox for the info. As I have seen 1-2 diagrams in one of the docs where it shows a Switch and DM ports configured as with VLAN tagging as Rainer told. It is like eth0 eth1 & VLAN101, VLAN110. This is where I fail to understand where & why this switch comes into the picture ?? Is this switch within Storage or DM or out of the VNX system ? Please help me out in understanding this.... sorry for the wastage of your time.

Thanks in Advance.