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For FC connectivity, configure dual redundant fabrics with each PowerStore node and each external host having connectivity on each of the fabrics. Minimize the number of hops between host and PowerStore. For performance, load balancing, and redundancy, each host must have at least two paths to each PowerStore node (four ports per PowerStore appliance). Dell Technologies recommends that a host has no more than eight paths per volume.
The FC SAN network must support 16 Gb/s or 32 Gb/s speed on all components: HBAs, SAN ports, and PowerStore FE I/O modules. When SAN switches are connected using Inter-Switch Links (ISLs), the aggregated bandwidth of the ISLs must be able to support the aggregated total bandwidth of all the SAP HANA nodes that are using these ISLs. An SAP HANA node requires the maximum bandwidth of 400 MB/s.
For Ethernet connectivity, use multiple switches that are connected with Virtual Link Trunking interconnect (VLTi) and Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) or equivalent technologies. Each PowerStore node must have connectivity to all linked switches. For PowerStore T models, the first two ports of the embedded module 4-port card on each PowerStore node are bonded together within the PowerStoreOS. For optimum performance and availability from these ports, Dell Technologies also recommends configuring link aggregation across the corresponding switch ports. LACP is not applicable to PowerStore X models.
With the introduction of PowerStoreOS 3.0, user-defined link aggregations are supported for Ethernet ports. Link aggregations can include 2 to 4 different Ethernet ports. The ports must be on the same node and operate at the same speed. A mirror link aggregation is automatically created on the peer node. User-defined link aggregations only support NAS server interfaces.
To connect the SAP HANA nodes using NAS/NFS, you need a dedicated storage IP network that has redundant switches with 25 Gb/s link speed on all components, including host network interface cards (NICs) and switch ports. Jumbo frames with maximum transmission unit (MTU) size 9,000 are also required and must be set on all network components. When IP switches are connected using uplinks, the aggregated bandwidth of the uplinks must be able to support the aggregated total bandwidth of all the SAP HANA nodes that are using these uplinks. An SAP HANA node requires the maximum bandwidth of 400 MB/s.
PowerStore systems support direct attachment of the SAP HANA hosts to the appliance through FC provided the hosts connect to both the PowerStore nodes and have the required native Linux multipathing software (DM-MPIO). Although direct-attached FC connections are supported with PowerStore, For production environments, Dell Technologies recommends using switches to provide HA and redundancy and protect SAP HANA against any component failures.