HP BladeSystem SAN Interconnects

HP BladeSystem SAN Interconnects

Designed for use in c3000 and c7000 HP BladeSystem blade enclosures, the HP BladeSystem family of Storage Area Network (SAN) interconnects function in much the same way as many other interconnect types affiliated with the HP BladeSystem product line, with the exception that they specifically deal with storage. The HP SAN interconnect family could also be called Fibre Channel (FC) interconnects as that is a common connection type, and arguably includes Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) interconnects well - all of which function to allow blade servers within HP BladeSystem c-Class blade enclosures to internally link with external storage drives/shelves in the exterior. There are some options that allow HP BladeSystem SAN interconnects to differ and be better suited to one IT environment versus another. For instance, the two speeds of HP SAN interconnects that are typically offered including 4 Gigabits (Gb) to 8 Gb.

There are many different options available to enterprise IT environments looking for storage interconnects, and these options include: HP 4Gb Fibre Channel Pass-Thru Module for the c-Class BladeSystem, Brocade 8Gb SAN Switch for HP c-Class BladeSystem, Brocade 4Gb SAN Switch for HP c-Class BladeSystem, and Cisco MDS 9124e Fabric Switches. The Brocade and Cisco switches that are listed as HP BladeSystem SAN interconnect options are actually a part of HP’s own B and C Series of SAN switches, which have been designed working with Brocade and Cisco as technology partners – and who could offer better SAN technology than these two top manufacturers? These SAN interconnects can be plugged into the back of HP blade enclosures and are specifically installed in bay 2 of the c3000 enclosure. Furthermore, these HP SAN interconnects provide external ports with the ability to accept short wave or long wave small form-factor pluggable (SFP) optical transceivers, which operate at speeds of either 1, 2, 4, or 8 Gb per second (Gb/s) based on the needs of the SAN infrastructure.