Storage Center Communication; Front-End Connectivity - Dell SC220 Owner's Manual

Figure 3. SC4020 Storage System with Two SC280 Expansion Enclosures

Storage Center Communication

A Storage Center uses multiple types of communication for both data transfer and administrative functions.
Storage Center communication is classified into three types: front end, back end, and system administration.

Front-End Connectivity

Front-end connectivity provides I/O paths from servers to a storage system and replication paths from one Storage Center to another
Storage Center. The SC4020 storage system provides the following types of front-end connectivity:
• Fibre Channel: Hosts, servers, or Network Attached Storage (NAS) appliances access storage by connecting to the storage system
Fibre Channel ports through one or more Fibre Channel switches. Connecting host servers directly to the storage system, without
using Fibre Channel switches, is not supported.
When replication is licensed, the SC4020 can use the front-end Fibre Channel ports to replicate data to another Storage Center.
• iSCSI: Hosts, servers, or Network Attached Storage (NAS) appliances access storage by connecting to the storage system iSCSI
ports through one or more Ethernet switches. Connecting host servers directly to the storage system, without using Ethernet
switches, is not supported.
When replication is licensed, the SC4020 can use the front-end iSCSI ports to replicate data to another Storage Center.
• SAS: Hosts or servers access storage by connecting directly to the storage system SAS ports.
NOTE: When replication is licensed, the SC4020 can use the embedded MGMT and REPL ports to perform iSCSI
replication to another Storage Center. In addition, the SC4020 can use the embedded MGMT and REPL ports as front-
end iSCSI ports for connectivity to host servers.
About the SC4020 Storage System 9