Planning for a direct-attached configuration
A direct-attached configuration dedicates entire port bandwidth to be used for a specific connection. Planning must account for the volume of expected traffic before you decide how many ports are used in a direct-attached configuration.
The Storwize® V3700 system offers multiple options in deciding how to create a direct-attached configuration. Because of the bandwidth requirements when you are using a direct-attached configuration, it is important to determine the volume of expected traffic in deciding the number of required ports.
- Fibre Channel direct attachment to host systems:
Storwize V3700 allows direct attachment connectivity between its Fibre Channel ports and host ports. Host systems can be connected to 8 Gb or 16 Gb Fibre Channel ports on Storwize V3700. No special configuration is required for host systems that are using this configuration.
- Fibre Channel direct attachment between nodes in a Storwize V3700 system:
Direct connection of Storwize V3700 Fibre Channel ports without using a Fibre Channel switch is supported. Such direct connections between Storwize V3700 nodes might be useful in small configurations where there is no Fibre Channel switch. It can also be used to connect nodes in the same I/O group to provide a dedicated connection for mirroring the fast write cache data. Ensure that sufficient bandwidth is provisioned between nodes to accommodate all the intra-node traffic.
This platform supports Fibre Channel direct attachment on all 16 Gb ports.