From: John R (solaris6789@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Jul 19 2005 - 00:12:48 EDT
General consensus was to use what the storage vendor recommends and
consulting with their compatibility matrix.
Recommendations are Qlogic QLA23xx cards, Emulex, Sun's Qlogic cards broadly
- added responses below. Thanks for this resourceful information from
experience people on this list.
Use whatever the storage vendor (EMC) supports and in their compatibility
matrix.
One reponse was to use the Qlogic QLA23xx cards across un, Linux, or
Windows. platforms to connect to our SAN.
Another response was that they used Emulex in the past for the Windows
servers and ran in to problems and have upgraded all the to Qlogic and had
no problems since.
Another experience was to use Emulex for disk connectivity and JNI for tape.
Now we pretty much use the Sun Qlogic HBA's for everything. They support
the ssd driver which is nice because it means no more reboots to add disk!
They are also supported by our tape vendor, StorageTek. The Sun part number
is SG-XPCI2FC-QF2. If you are using Sun storage, I'm sure this is what Sun
would recommend. We use EMC, and they have worked just fine.
I currently use Qlogic cards. They have both a CLI and GUI interface and
their driver supports load-balancing (LUN level, not traffic level) and path
failover high availability. I found them to be really easy to set up and
have tested the failover successfully.
have you checked the sun systems handbook on sunsolve?
the older and more accessible version is also available on the web. (its
location is mentioned in the archives.) the handbook lists all compatible
hardware for sun machines.
See the 'what works with what' Matrix (ask your SUN VB) and additional the
other pages what SUN supports. If you have to make money with your Server,
dont make experiments!
I have had nothing but Joy from the Sun branded Dual-Port 2GB QLogics (sun
part X6767 I think). They are easy to configure, and do not require messing
around with sd.conf. Plus, Sun look after the driver directly, so you are
much less likely to have complications with patches, updates
and so forth. If you are using Sun Branded HDS arrays, even better.
What are you connecting to? If Sun, use Sun cards (Sun QLogic with Sun's
firmware)
Are you under a Sun maintenance contract? If so, use the Sun Qlogic card is
possible. Check first with the storage vendor. This card is 10x more
stabler than the Sun JNI (Yes, the have this, but it has a BAD driver
compared to vanilla ;-). It also allows no-reboot reconfig and integrates
with Sun's
stack nicley, using SUn San packages (downloadable)
Alternatively, the vanilla QLogic will be my second choice. Lately they have
very stable drivers. It does make for additional complexity though. However,
ensure you have the latest firmware as well before using it (downloadable)
Try and stay away from Emulex. Had a few panics due to them. Not nice, bus
timeouts/hangs etc Urghhh . They "were" good. Now not so good - drivers!!!
PS: The Sun Qlogic will be more expensive that the vanilla. Try for discount
if talking to a Sun rep. Alternatively look at grey market. Just make sure
you get a 2 or 3 month warranty which is the norm. Also upgrade to the
latest firmware (via patch)
Emulex LP9000 series work fine. You can pick up the LP8000s can be had on
Ebay quite cheap too. There's the Qlogic QLC series, HPAQ do them though
these are generally preferred for use with Storageworks arrays.
One emphatic response was to use Emulex and emulex only.
I have 2 clariions and I use emulex. Lp9002-le cards. They are pci, and are
on the emc support matrix. Best advice I can give is to use cards supported
by your SAN vendor.
Regards
John
>-----Original Message-----
>Sent: Friday, July 15, 2005 4:21 PM
>To: sunmanagers@sunmanagers.org
>Subject: HBA recommendations for various Sun Hardware
>
>Gurus:
>
>Would you recommend any fiber HBA for SAN storage given JNI cards are not
>available anymore?
>
>How are you transitioning to other vendors , what method of certification
>you are adopting.
>
>Qlogic, emulex, Sun or any others to be used with PCI ??
>
>Any information is appreciated?
>
>Regards
>John
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