Home > Workload Solutions > Oracle > White Papers > Deployment Best Practices for Oracle Databases with Dell EMC PowerMax > PowerMax and FC-NVMe
With the PowerMaxOS Q3 2019 release, PowerMax introduced end-to-end NVMe over FC fabrics, or FC-NVMe. Internally, PowerMaxOS was already accessing both NAND and SCM flash media using NVMe protocol. New to this release is that now also the database servers can use the NVMe protocol over FC fabric (SAN switches) to access the PowerMax storage system for all read and write I/O operations.
To use this protocol, 32 Gb PowerMax front-end modules are required, together with Gen 6 FC switch and HBAs (32 Gb). This infrastructure allows for either FC or FC-NVMe deployment. The only difference is the protocol that the servers use to access storage devices. When PowerMax front-end adapter ports are set for FC connectivity they are listed as FAs; when set for FC-NVMe they are listed as FNs.