CONFIGURING YOUR HARDWARE APPLIANCE TO PRESENT LOCAL FC TARGETS TO THE CLOUD

INTRODUCTION

This guide will teach you how to log into a Fibre Channel target in your local SAN from your WANrockIT hardware appliance to present it into the AWS cloud. This tutorial will use a Fibre Channel tape drive, a WANrockIT 200 series hardware appliance with Fibre Channel capabilities, and a WANrockIT Node in AWS.

SETTING THE FC PORT CONFIGURATION

In order to connect devices to your local WANrockIT Node, at least one Fibre Channel port must be set to present in “Initiator Mode”. To do this, log into the web interface, then click on the “FC Port Configuration” button from the home screen as shown below.

aws_fc_port_configuration_highlight

This will bring up a page showing all of the Fibre Channel ports on the Node. From the example in the image below, both ports are in their default configuration. “Port 2B” is set to initiator mode as required. If your configuration does not have any ports set to “Initiator”, change one of the ports and click the “Save” button. A reboot will be required for the changes to take effect.

aws_fc_port_configuration

CONNECTING TO A FIBRE CHANNEL TAPE DRIVE

Note that PCI slots are numbered, starting at 1, from left to right; and ports on each HBA are lettered from left to right. E.g., in the picture below the Fibre Channel cable is connected to Port 1A. Using an LC-LC Multi-mode Fibre Channel cable, connect your initiator mode port to your Fibre Channel tape drive. An 8Gb card will only support hosts running at speeds at 2Gb and above; if your host is using a 1Gb Card or SFP please contact Bridgeworks Support.

aws_fc_hardware

It is important to note that your link will not become active without any devices attached. When you do have devices attached the amber LED will blink, the pattern differing depending on the speed of the link. One flash indicates a 2Gb link, two flashes in succession indicates a 4Gb link and three flashes in succession indicates an 8Gb link.

CONFIRMING THE PRESENCE OF TARGETS

In order to confirm that targets will be presented to your WANrockIT Node in AWS, you should confirm that your FC devices are present on your Node. To do this, navigate to “SCSI Device Management” by clicking the corresponding icon as shown below.

aws_fc_device_management_highlight

You will be presented with a page that contains a list of all the devices connected to your Node as either “Directly Connected Devices” (i.e. Fibre Channel Devices are physically plugged into this Node) or as “Devices registered from other WANrockIT Nodes” (i.e. a WAN connection was established to another WANrockIT instance which has “Directly Connected Devices”). The image below shows our directly connected tape drive.

aws_iscsi_cloud_device_management

Congratulations, you have completed this step for connecting a Fibre Channel tape drive for presentation into the AWS cloud. For help with setting up WAN link click here for help with setting up your AWS WANrockIT Node click here.

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