Planning And Design Considerations; Network Ports; Ip Addresses - Dell EqualLogic FS7500 Technical Manual

6 Planning and design considerations

6.1 Network ports

Each FS7500 controller contains a total of thirteen 1 Gigabit Ethernet ports that need to be connected
for optimal performance. A total of 26 network ports are required for each controller pair. Established
best practices for EqualLogic SANs recommend that the LAN and SAN be separated, and more
specifically, that the SAN is physically isolated from the LAN.
For maximum availability, it is recommended that both the LAN and SAN have redundancy in the
switches. Connections from the FS7500 can be staggered across redundant switches in a stack or
modules in a chassis so that a single switch (or module) failure does not prevent connectivity from the
client to the FS7500 or from the FS7500 to the SAN storage.
On each controller node there are four ports for client connectivity. All four should be connected to a
LAN switch for maximum performance. The four LAN ports can be configured for ALB (Adaptive Load
Balancing) mode or Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP; IEEE 802.3ad). If LACP mode is used, it
requires further configuration of the network switches (on the LAN or client side) to support it. A total
of 8 LAN ports are required for each controller pair.
On the SAN, there are four 1 Gigabit ports per controller node for iSCSI connectivity. An additional five
ports per controller node are used for cache mirroring, heartbeat between nodes, and for other
internal system management functions. These additional five 1 Gigabit ports must also be located on
the SAN switch fabric, which results in a total of 9 ports per controller node (or 18 per controller pair).
The FS7500 does not support virtual LAN (VLAN) tagging and VLANs are not required on either the LAN
or SAN switch. However, if VLANs are used, then switch ports should be configured as untagged so
that any tags are removed on port egress (when the packet leaves the switch).
EqualLogic FS7500 Installation and Setup Guide
Note: Refer to the
the FS7500. (Dell EqualLogic Support User ID required.)
 https://support.equallogic.com/support/download_file.aspx?id=1167

6.2 IP addresses

Each NAS controller node requires a unique static IP address on the LAN for management and support
purposes.
A NAS service IP address is used by clients to access any CIFS shares and NFS exports hosted by the
NAS service. When a NAS service is configured, one NAS service IP address is required if clients are on
the same subnet as the FS7500 and connections are automatically balanced across all available
connections.
If the client network is routed, meaning clients are on a different subnet than the FS7500, the client
network configuration can be modified to add additional NAS service IP addresses to allow for proper
load balancing across multiple client subnets. The total number of NAS service IP addresses required
will depend on the bonding mode used for the NAS service:
BP1016
Integrating the Dell EqualLogic FS7500 into an Existing SAN
for specific instructions on cabling
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