Cisco Cisco UCS B440 M1 High-Performance Blade Server Weißbuch
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High Availability: A typical data center is highly redundant in nature - redundant paths, redundant disks and
redundant storage controllers. When operating system images are stored on disks in the SAN, it supports
high availability and eliminates the potential for mechanical failure of a local disk.
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Rapid Redeployment: Businesses that experience temporary high production workloads can take
advantage of SAN technologies to clone the boot image and distribute the image to multiple servers for
rapid deployment. Such servers may only need to be in production for hours or days and can be readily
removed when the production need has been met. Highly efficient deployment of boot images makes
temporary server usage a cost effective endeavor.
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Centralized Image Management: When operating system images are stored on networked disks, all
upgrades and fixes can be managed at a centralized location. Changes made to disks in a storage array are
readily accessible by each server.
With boot from SAN, the image resides on the SAN and the server communicates with the SAN through a host bus
adapter (HBA). The HBAs BIOS contain the instructions that enable the server to find the boot disk. After power on
self test (POST), the server hardware component fetches the boot device that is designated as the boot device in
the hardware BOIS settings. When the hardware detects the boot device, it follows the regular boot process.
There are four distinct portions of the SAN procedure:
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Storage array configuration
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Cisco UCS configuration of service profile
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SAN zone configuration
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Host Registration on Storage
4.3.1 Storage Array Configuration
In the present setup, EMC CLARiiON CX4-240 is used as a Storage device. Subsequent figure gives an overview
of SAN connectivity for the WebLogic deployment over Cisco UCS Blade servers.
Figure 18. Storage Connectivity