IBM System storage DS6000 Series, Attachment Manual

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Software Requirements
To see current information on servers, operating systems, I/O adapters, and
connectivity products supported by the DS6000 series, click Interoperability Matrix
at the following DS6000 series Web site:
http://www.ibm.com/servers/storage/disk/ds6000/interop.html
Host systems that DS6000 series supports
The DS6000 series provides a variety of host attachments so that you can
consolidate storage capacity and workloads for open-systems hosts and zSeries
hosts. The storage unit can be configured for fibre-channel adapters, for support of
fibre-channel protocol (FCP) and fibre connection (FICON) protocol.
For fibre channel attachments, you can establish zones. The zones must contain a
single port that is attached to a system adapter with the desired number of ports
that are attached to the storage unit. By establishing zones, you reduce the
possibility of interactions between system adapters in switched configurations. You
can establish the zones by using either of two zoning methods:
v Port number
v Worldwide port name (WWPN)
You can configure switch ports and hub ports that are attached to the storage unit
in more than one zone. This enables multiple system adapters to share access to
the storage unit fibre channel ports. Shared access to an storage unit fibre channel
port might come from host platforms that support a combination of bus adapter
types and the operating systems. For information about host systems, operating
system levels, host bus adapters, cables, and fabric support that IBM supports, see
the DS6000 series Interoperability Matrix at:
http://www.ibm.com/servers/storage/disk/ds6000/interop.html .
Fibre channel host attachments
Fibre channel technology supports increased performance, scalability, availability,
and distance for attaching storage subsystems to network servers. Fibre channel
technology supports applications that require large amounts of disk storage that is
shared by two or more servers. You can use fibre channel to connect large amounts
of disk storage to a server or cluster of servers.
The DS6000 series provides a fibre channel connection when you install a
fibre-channel SFP (shortwave or longwave) in the DS6800 model.
Fibre channel architecture provides a variety of communication protocols on the
storage server. The servers that are interconnected are referred to as nodes . Each
node has one or more ports.
A storage unit is a node in a fibre channel network. Each port on a DS6800 fibre
channel SFP is a fibre channel port. A host is also a node in a fibre channel
network. Each port attaches to a serial-transmission medium that provides duplex
communication with the node at the other end of the medium.
There are three basic topologies supported by fibre channel interconnection
architecture:
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DS6000 Host Systems Attachment Guide