Brocade 200E Switch - Fibre Channel

Question

What I have:

Fujitsu-Siemens PRIMERGY BX600
Brocade 200E (16 port, 4gbit fibre).

My question:

Imagine a QNAP with a fiber 10GBIT card connected to the Brocade 200E (16 port, 4gbit fibre). Would this work; would the card drop down to 4GBIT?
Are 10GBIT fiber cards backwards completable.

Update. I have the specs of my server now....

Fujitsu-Siemens PRIMERGY BX600 S3 Blade Ecosystem Blade Chassis comprising;

2 x A3C40073243 Blade Management modules
2 x A3C40089238 GBE Switch Blade SB9F 30/12
2 x A3C40085736 4Gb 10 port pass through blades
1 x A3C40083767 Digital KVM Modules
2 x A3C40073245 Fan enclosures + cooling fans
4 x A3C40073262 Power Supplies

My Goals and Objectives

To have a blade system in place for 8 blades for video rendering, the other 2 for database and scripts etc
The system will be built on VMWARE ESXi 5
Use ISCSI on the QNAP to support HA and vmotion if needed
Users to access the qnap for video editing
QANAP has 12 drive (2 x (6 HDD in RAID 10)

@tony roth - 10x BX620 S4 Dual Quad Core 2.5Ghz Blade Servers — Arthor, Jun 22 '12 at 16:56
@tony roth - 2 x A3C40085736 4Gb 10 port pass through blades — Arthor, Jun 22 '12 at 17:10
@ tony roth - I don not have it to hand but the A3C40085736 is full with the 4GBic. We are about to buy it. And we have the Brocade 200E & 10 x 2M FC Cables to suit above. — Arthor, Jun 22 '12 at 17:16
sorry my bad didn't see the part number in the list I was looking at, either way you don't have what you need fc and 10gbe don't mix without a media converter. If you have not bought the fc module get the 10gbe module instead. What components do you have on hand? — tony roth, Jun 22 '12 at 17:24
can we ask what you are trying to do here? 10gbe can be expensive overall and you might not need it. — tony roth, Jun 22 '12 at 18:14
@tonyroth - I think you are right. The QNAP has 4 x RJ45 1 gbits or 2 x 1 GBITS and 1 x 10GBIT card. I guess I am looking for the best setup. Blade has been bought but not the Fibre switch, yet. — Arthor, Jun 22 '12 at 18:20
so 8 esxi hosts hosting a bunch of servers running as render farm? — tony roth, Jun 22 '12 at 18:22
@tonyroth Yes and the others will be more for dev build etc etc.. My goal is how to connect the GNAP in all of this as this is our ONLY storage solution for the moment, we have a backup system but that is slow...Sorry all 10 will be ESXI.. the last two blades will have a few VM on them.. 6 - 10 — Arthor, Jun 22 '12 at 18:25
are you looking for peak frame rates? I ask because I'm somewhat confused as to why you'd virtualize a render farm. — tony roth, Jun 22 '12 at 18:29
@tonyroth - Most of the processing is semi automated or fully. The VM system allow a better control and maintenance. I will use the other VMS on the same blade but inactive and used when rendering is in LOW demand. At present I have 4 servers. DL585 etc and its all over the place. The Blade allows me to put everything in one place and can do more. Saves on power as well. — Arthor, Jun 22 '12 at 18:32
@tonyroth - what a pain in the @#@... Ok.. Any advice. I guess getting the SMB qnap in with a enterprise stuff is not the easiest. — Arthor, Jun 22 '12 at 18:56
trying to read the specs on the bx600 module options and its driving me batty at this point. — tony roth, Jun 22 '12 at 19:07
the qnap is not the issue its the bx600 and its io modules, they are using oldish standards for the 10gbe interfaces and will drive your costs up. Can you return it :(. — tony roth, Jun 22 '12 at 19:14
@tonyroth - They come with the server. I mean what should I be looking? Which module do I need. Maybe I should only use the RJ45's? — Arthor, Jun 22 '12 at 19:36
well I guess I was to hung up on the getting 10gbe, but in this case I'd use 4 of the uplinks crossed over to the 4 1gbe ports on the qnap! problem solved sorry for the confusion — tony roth, Jun 22 '12 at 19:45
@tonyroth - Does that mean I do not need the switch?, just a good quality rj45 one... for all the other video editors.. — Arthor, Jun 22 '12 at 19:48
use 4 of the uplinks from the SB9F directly to the qnap (xovered) the rest of the uplinks need to go to a switch. — tony roth, Jun 22 '12 at 21:02

Brennan · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-23T16:45:31.847

4

This will not work.

Fiber may be the medium, but these are different standards, and different types of network cards.

The Brocade is Fiber Channel (FC), and the QNAP is 10Gb ethernet. Most consumer/smb grade NAS do not support FC. Also, FC is somewhat considered a legacy protocol these days..

You'll see them listed as 1/2/4/8 FC cards/HBAs, or 1/10Gb network cards, but they are different technologies that are not compatible.

However, you may be able to directly connect the Blade Enclosure to the QNAP and avoid the FC switch. Alternatively, you'll be able to do the same via a 10Gb switch.

E.g.

Blade enclosure ------------------ QNAP

or

Blade enclosure ----------- 10Gb switch ---------QNAP

Based on your updated requirements, video streaming, etc I'm concerned about using a QNAP too.

Take a peek at http://www.netapp.com/us/products/storage-systems/fas2200/fas2200-product-comparison.html as they are the gold standard for lower-end professional virtualization.

So, it might update to something like this:

Blade enclosure ----------- 10Gb switch ---------Netapp

or

Blade enclosure (10Gb) -------------------Netapp

If going back to FC, but swapping out the QNAP, then something like

Blade enclosure ----- Brocade ------------Netapp

Please track your interfaces, since not all Netapps have FC interfaces.

Conclusion: You technically do not need a switch, although you may want one in order to use multiple paths for the network infrastructure.

References:

A description of FC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibre_Channel

A description of 10GbE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10-gigabit_Ethernet

edited Jun 23 '12 at 16:45

answered Jun 22 '12 at 15:50

Brennan

1,398
6
18

The QNAP TS-EC1279U-RP will support a 10GBIT card e.g. OCe11102-IM or OCe11102-NM. Would this provide a solution? – Arthor Jun 22 '12 at 16:20
2

What he's saying is that those are Ethernet adapters, what you need are FC HBAs to be able to use that switch. The cards you mention just use optical interconnects, and are not true fiber channel. – Tatas Jun 22 '12 at 17:36
@Tatas hmmmmm.. Okay, can I have some suggestion please on how I should set this up. Do I even need the Brocade 200E? Any advice would be great... – Arthor Jun 22 '12 at 17:47
The above answer by @Brennan is exactly what I would recommend. – Tatas Jun 22 '12 at 17:58
@Tatas, So effectively the switch is the key. But then there is no really benefit for me buy the switch? (Brocade 200E (16 port, 4gbit fibre) – Arthor Jun 22 '12 at 18:02
you need a switch but it will be a 10gbe sfp+, beware that you'll need to buy the sfp+ modules also. – tony roth Jun 22 '12 at 18:10
@Arthor a switch may not be required if you are directly connecting the QNAP to the blade enclosure, however, a switch may be useful in the future for multi-homing the infrastructure and preventing a single point of failure via an HBA or cable that goes bad or gets damaged. – Brennan Jun 22 '12 at 20:22

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 22 '12 at 20:26

The 10GbE components use Ethernet. It transports data using the Ethernet standard.

The switch that you're talking about is a Fiber Channel switch. It speaks Fiber Channel Protocol, which was designed to transmit SCSI commands over Fiber uplinks.

Your 10GbE NICs speak a different "language" than the FC Switch. They aren't compatible. If you want them to speak you need to get equipment that's either all Ethernet (L2 Ethernet switch, 10GbE NICs, etc) or all FCP (Brocade switch, FC HBAs for the storage and servers).

Just because the physical medium might all be fiber doesn't mean that the protocols that are transmitted over that physical medium are all interchangable. I could write a protocol that exists solely to transmit an image of my cat over a physical fiber medium. That doesn't mean that a FC switch or a GbE adapter would know what to do with it.

tl;dr - the physical medium isn't important in this case. Get gear that uses all the same transmission protocol.

Brocade 200E Switch - Fibre Channel

2 Answers2