IBM SAN Volume Controller 2145-CF8, Hardware Installation Manual

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Chapter 1. SAN Volume Controller overview
The SAN Volume Controller combines software and hardware into a
comprehensive, modular appliance that uses symmetric virtualization.
Symmetric virtualization is achieved by creating a pool of managed disks (MDisks)
from the attached storage systems. Those storage systems are then mapped to a set
of virtual disks (VDisks) for use by attached host systems. System administrators
can view and access a common pool of storage on the storage area network (SAN).
This functionality helps administrators to use storage resources more efficiently
and provides a common base for advanced functions.
Each SAN Volume Controller node is an individual server in a SAN Volume
Controller cluster on which the SAN Volume Controller software runs.
The nodes are always installed in pairs, with a minimum of one and a maximum
of four pairs of nodes constituting a
cluster . Each pair of nodes is known as an I/O
group . All I/O operations that are managed by the nodes in an I/O group are
cached on both nodes.
SAN Volume Controller operating environment
To use the SAN Volume Controller, you must meet the minimum hardware and
software requirements and ensure that other operating environment criteria are
met.
Minimum requirements
You must set up your SAN Volume Controller operating environment according to
the following requirements:
v Minimum of one pair of SAN Volume Controller nodes
v
Minimum of two uninterruptible power supply units
v
One IBM System Storage Productivity Center or one master console per SAN
installation for configuration
SAN Volume Controller 2145-CF8 node features
The SAN Volume Controller 2145-CF8 node has the following features:
v
A 19-inch rack-mounted enclosure
v
One 4-port 8 Gbps fibre-channel adapter
v 24 GB memory
v
One quad-core processor
v Dual, redundant power supplies
v
Supports up to four optional solid-state drives (SSDs)
© Copyright IBM Corp. 2009
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