10 Introduction - HP 2000sa Deployment Manual

10 Introduction

Examples in this section illustrate a few of the supported deployments when connecting external
SAS storage enclosures to the c-Class BladeSystem. The focus of these examples is on hardware
options, requirements, and SAS cabling. Most examples are of dual-domain, high-availability
configurations, so that if any component along the path fails, traffic will fail over to the alternate
path.
Most configurations discussed and illustrated in this document provide high availability to the
storage enclosures:
◦ Standard high-availability cabling provides two cable paths to the external storage; one
to the primary switch and the other one to the paired switch in the same interconnect row
of BladeSystem c-Class enclosure.
◦ Optimal and wide-port high-availability cabling provide four cable paths to the external
storage. The additional paths in optimal and wide-port cabling configurations provide
additional availability and offer improved performance.
Because configuration and cabling principles are the same for MSA2000sa and MSA2000sa
G2 controller enclosures, examples of shared storage show either the MSA2000sa or
MSA2000sa G2 controller enclosure. Examples are not duplicated for each MSA model.
In the provided illustrations, colors are used to highlight and differentiate the cable paths from
the HP 3Gb SAS BL Switches to the storage enclosures. The choice of colors do not represent
the actual color of the cable, but were chosen to help color-impaired readers better differentiate
the paths.
◦ Blue cables: Connections to the primary (left) switch in the BladeSystem c-Class enclosure.
(Interconnect bays 3, 5, or 7)
◦ Green cables: Connections to the paired switch in the same row of the BladeSystem
c-Class enclosure. (Interconnect bays 4, 6, or 8)
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