Connecting Fibre Channel cables to a Fibre Channel adapter in the enclosure

If your system has one or more 4-port 16 Gbps Fibre Channel adapters, or one or more 4-port 32 Gbps Fibre Channel adapters installed, use Fibre Channel cables to connect the two node canisters in the enclosure to the switches in the Fibre Channel SAN.

Procedure

To install the cables, complete the following steps.

  1. Connect the required number of Fibre Channel cables to the node canisters in the control enclosure.
    Note: Both canisters must have the same number of cables connected.
    Figure 1 shows an example configuration with two Fibre Channel cables connected to each canister.
    Figure 1. Example configuration with two Fibre Channel cables per canister
    Image of control enclosure rear view with two Fibre Channel cables per canister
    Image of control enclosure rear view with two Fibre Channel cables per canister
  2. If you want to connect additional Fibre Channel cables, make sure to connect the same number of cables to each canister.
    Figure 2 shows an example configuration with four Fibre Channel cables connected to each canister.
    Figure 2. Example configuration with four Fibre Channel cables per canister
    Image of control enclosure rear view with four Fibre Channel cables per canister
    Image of control enclosure rear view with four Fibre Channel cables per canister
  3. If a control enclosure is already installed, you can optionally add Fibre Channel connections between all the control enclosures.
    • This involves both the physical installation of the cables and configuring the correct zoning on the Fibre Channel switches.
    • Configure the network so that every node canister has at least two connections to every node canister in a different control enclosure.
    • You must configure the network before you attempt to add a control enclosure to an existing system.