[HPADM] General question: Is it considered "vital" to have your fabric (switch) supported by the same vendor as your storage?

From: Ayson, Alison (alison.ayson@roche.com)
Date: Tue Jul 05 2005 - 16:42:46 EDT

I apologize as this is not necessarily a specific HP question, but I
respect the experience of those on this list and I'd like to hear your
opinions.

I know that a lot of admins subscribed to this list support EMC storage.
I was wondering if it's considered a "best practice" to have your fabric
supported by the same vendor as your storage. For example, if I have
only EMC storage would it be considered foolish to purchase my Brocade
switches from HP and have HP support the switches?

I maintain an EMC SAN which consists of 1 Clariion CX700 and one EMC
8830 Symmetrix. The hosts attached to this SAN are largely HP Compaq DL
class servers running RedHat Linux. The switches in this SAN are 6
separate Brocade Silkwork 2 gb "edge" switches, none of which talk to
each other (which means I have to maintain 6 separate fabrics). I'm
hoping to migrate to two Brocade 24000B Director switches, thus reducing
6 fabrics down to two. I can buy the Brocade Director's from either HP
or EMC. If I buy from HP then I'll get support from HP. If I buy from
EMC I'll get support from EMC.

Does anyone out there have EMC storage that's connected to switches
(Brocade or whatever) that are maintained by a vendor than EMC? If so,
have you run into problems?

Is it, in general, considered a good idea to have your storage vendor
support your fabric?

I'm looking at HP for a couple of reasons: a) they are pricing their
switches more competitively and b) EMC support hasn't been that great
for us in the past.

I just took over the SAN this last 6 months, so I don't have a huge
amount of experience under my belt. Because of my inexperience, I'm not
sure if I'd be creating a difficult situation for myself (finger
pointing, whatever) if I chose to go with a vendor other than EMC for
fabric support.

All opinions, experiences, etc. are greatly appreciated.

Alison Ayson 

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