Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance: Understanding the Relationship Between the ZFS Appliance and Solaris MPXIO (Doc ID 2044778.1)

Last updated on FEBRUARY 04, 2022

Applies to:

Purpose

This document explains the relationship and behavior between the Oracle ZFS appliance and the Solaris mpxio multipath utility.

The appliance, although primarily designed for network storage, supports Fiber Channel Adapters in both initiator and target modes. When configured as targets, the ZFSSA takes on a behavior similar to that of an Asymmetric Array.

This document discusses the similarities and differences in Asymmetric behavior, as well as the best techniques to maximize availability during failover.

Scope

In the following diagram, we see a typical deployment of the ZFSSA in a Fiber Channel Storage Area Network.

World Wide Port Zoning is configured on the Brocade Switches. Two zones are created and added into the active configuration.

• ZFS-NodeA target port <WWN>:69 is zoned with X4270 Initiator <WWN>:1f
• ZFS-NodeB target port <WWN>:82 is zoned with X4270 Initiator <WWN>:37

Similarly, lun security is configured on the appliance to present a lun exclusively to the X4270 Server. 

• Initiator group X is created with both X4270 initiators <WWN>:1f and <WWN>:37
• Target group Y is created with both ZFSSA-CLuster targets <WWN>:69 and <WWN>:82
• A LUN is created and associated to Initiator Group X and Target Group Y.

Details

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