QuestionQ20

SAN solution assessment

A company has five dual-attached Windows servers, four single-attached Linux servers, and ten dual-attached Solaris servers. The company requires a highly available architecture. A dual-controller FAS3100 series system, with every onboard FC port connected to the fabric, is proposed. From the choices shown, what total number of FC ports and fabric type should be deployed?

  • A single fabric with 38 ports total
  • B dual fabrics with 38 ports total
  • C dual fabrics with 42 ports total
  • D single fabric with 42 ports total
Explanation

A highly available Fibre Channel SAN design avoids a single point of failure by building two independent fabrics rather than one, since a single fabric-wide failure or switch outage would otherwise remove every path to the dual-attached hosts and the HA controller pair. Summing the host initiator ports (5 dual-attached Windows x2 + 4 single-attached Linux x1 + 10 dual-attached Solaris x2 = 34) with the storage-side ports (a dual-controller FAS3100 HA pair with every onboard FC port connected uses 4 ports per controller, 8 total) yields 42 FC ports overall, consistent with a dual-fabric topology.

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