Chapter 1 Introduction
2
Storage Center SC8000 Controller Deployment Guide
Storage Center Hardware Components
A
Dell
Compellent
Storage
Center
consists
of
one
or
two
controllers,
switches,
and
one
or
more
enclosures.
Controllers
A
Storage
Center
controller
provides
the
central
processing
capability
for
the
Storage
Center
Operating
System
(OS),
application
software
(Storage
Center
System
Manager),
and
managing
RAID
storage.
A
Storage
Center
can
be
configured
with
a
single
controller
(single
‐
controller
Storage
Center)
or
a
pair
of
controllers
(dual
‐
controller
Storage
Center).
In
a
dual
‐
controller
Storage
Center
configuration,
the
pair
of
controllers
must
be
the
same
controller
model.
IO
cards
in
the
controller
provide
communication
with
drive
enclosures
and
servers
that
use
the
storage.
Controllers
provide
two
types
of
IO
ports:
Front
‐
end
ports
:
Hosts,
servers,
or
Network
Attached
Storage
(NAS)
appliances
access
storage
by
connecting
to
controller
Fibre
Channel
IO
cards,
FCoE
IO
cards,
or
iSCSI
IO
cards
through
one
or
more
Fibre
Channel
or
Ethernet
network
switches.
Ports
for
these
connections
are
located
on
the
back
of
the
controller,
but
are
designated
as
front
‐
end
ports.
Back
‐
end
ports
:
Enclosures,
which
hold
the
physical
drives
that
provide
back
‐
end
storage,
connect
directly
to
the
controller.
Fibre
Channel
and
SAS
transports
are
supported
through
ports
designated
as
back
‐
end
ports.
Back
‐
end
ports
are
in
their
own
private
network
between
the
controllers
and
the
drive
enclosures.
Switches
Dell
Compellent
offers
Fibre
Channel
(FC)
and
iSCSI
switches
and
IO
cards
as
part
of
the
total
Storage
Center
product
package.
Switches
provide
robust
connectivity
to
servers,
allowing
for
the
use
of
multiple
controllers
and
redundant
transport
paths.
Cabling
between
the
controller
IO
cards
and
switches
(and
servers)
is
referred
to
as
front
‐
end
connectivity.
Enclosures
Enclosures
house
and
control
drives
that
provide
storage.
Enclosures
are
connected
directly
to
controller
IO
cards.
These
connections
are
referred
to
as
back
‐
end
connectivity.
New
Storage
Center
deployments
use
6
GB
Serial
Attached
SCSI
(SAS)
disk
enclosures.
Fibre
Channel
Switched
Bunch
of
Disks
(SBOD)
and
Serial
Advanced
Technology
Attachment
(SATA)
enclosures
are
supported
for
existing
Storage
Centers
and
for
controller
migrations
only
(for
example,
upgrading
an
existing
Storage
Center
by
migrating
from
a
CT
‐
SC040
controller
to
an
SC8000
controller).
