Copying data to a SAN attached to UCS

[rramlal]

Hi Folks,

We have a 2 5108 chassis with 3 B200 blades each and 2 fabric interconnect 6248. This UCS connects to a hitachi storage array. The virtual machines configured use VMware.

I am not very familiar with the SAN aspect and I wanted an idea on how we can migrate 4TB of data to the Hitachi Storage array . The external storage device which consists of the 4TB of data has a USB connection but the UCS system does not.

Can you give some options as to how this is normally done or can be done? Other than the USB.

Thanks

[Walter Dey · Accepted solution]

Is your Hitachi array connected directly to UCS, or via a SAN, and if yes, what kind of SAN (Brocade, Cisco) ?

One can connect a dongle (KVM local I/O cable) to any blade, and get 2 external USB connections:

The KVM local I/O cable ships with every UCS 5100 Series blade server chassis accessory kit. The KVM local I/O cable provides a connection into the server, providing a DB9 serial connector, a VGA connector for a monitor, and dual USB ports for a keyboard and mouse. With this cable, you can create a direct connection to the operating system and the BIOS running on the server.

I believe this could be misused to temporarly connect your storage for data transfer, although a very ugly solution.

[rramlal]

Thanks for your response.

The hitachi san connects to the fabric interconnects directly. What do you mean it can be an ugly solution?

[Walter Dey]

A dongle hanging off a blade ! this is usually only used for troubleshooting, or for temporary use like in your case, during the time of migration. Technically ok !

[rramlal]

Okay, yes it is temporary and yes i understand that it can be a messy situation. I will be careful. thanks much