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Chapter 4 Connect Data Cables
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HAPTER
Connect Data Cables
About Cabling a Pillar Axiom 600 System
The Pillar Axiom 600 system is a scalable storage system that consists of a Pilot
management controller, at least one Slammer storage controller, and some
number of Brick storage enclosures depending upon your system model.
Cabling the Pillar Axiom 600 systems consists of two parts:
● Front-end cabling, which involves connecting the Slammer to the
customer's data network, and connecting the Pilot to the customer's
management network. The Pilot connection uses Ethernet. The Slammer
cable connections to the data network uses Fiber Channel (FC) or Ethernet,
depending on the Slammer.
● Back-end cabling, which involves cabling the Storage System Fabric (SSF),
sometimes referred to as the private interconnect, or simply PI, and the
private management interface (PMI).
Pillar Axiom 600 systems transmit data among its hardware components (Bricks,
Slammers, and the Pilot) through the SSF and PMI cabling.
The SSF cables provide the inter and intra-cabling connections between the
Bricks and the Slammers to support all data traffic, the cross connections among
the Slammer control units (CUs), and the cross connections among the Brick CUs.
The fast Ethernet network between the Pilot and the Slammers in a Pillar
Axiom 600 system is called the PMI. The PMI also includes the cross
connections between the Slammer CUs as well as the cross connections
between the Pilot CUs. These cross connections between the Pilot CUs permit
each CU to monitor the heartbeat of the other CU. The heartbeat connection
allows the passive Pilot CU to induce a failover, if the active Pilot CU fails.
The Pilot has no physical connection to the user data and, therefore, no cable
connection exists between the Pilot and the Bricks.
Bricks are connected together in Brick strings. The Brick at the head of the string
connects to the Slammer. Each of the other Bricks in the string connect to the
previous Brick in the string. A Brick that is higher in a string is one that is closer
to the Slammer or head of the string. A Brick that is lower in a string is one that is
further from the Slammer or the head of the string.
About Cabling a Pillar Axiom 600 System
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