TCP/IP Over Fibre Channel
 

Hello everyone,

I have an interesting project i would like to try. We have an existing SAN (Brocade switch and a bunch of qlogic 2200 HBAs). On 4 of my nodes I am running MySQL Cluster, on an existing 100 megabit network. Cluster is maxing out the interface, and I really don't want to go out and buy a gigabit switch.

I was wondering if anyone has had any success at running tcp/ip over fibre channel. I know it's possible, but there doesn't seem to be any information out there on how to do it.

I know it is dumb to spend all of the money on a SAN just to run tcp/ip traffic over it, when ethernet is so much cheaper. The only reason I am considering this is because the infrastructure is already in place, and the SQL nodes don't communicate with the actual SAN much, even though they have adapters, ssssooooo I would like ot get my money's worth out of it.

Thanks!!!

Brandon

I don't know how to do it but would advise against it in any case. Although you say they don't use the SAN "much" the fact is it IS a SAN meaning any traffic you send on it will have to compete with any other SAN traffic that does exist (not just the traffic that comes from these machines). Unless these are the only machines on the SAN it seems a big risk to storage to suddenly introduce extraneous packets to the SAN.

Ehh. I've already decided to just buy one of those cheap linksys gigabit switches off of eBay for testing. These machines don't use the SAN at all now, I was using it for backups mainly, but now I have my tape library working, so I can throw backups to tape now. I am going to yank the FC HDAs out of the DB nodes because it's kind of a waste to ahve them in there. I just wish the Cisco gigabit switchs weren't so damned much money ($5k for a 24 port switch is crazy). We are using Dell 2650s which have 10/100/1000 crads built in, so I will just stick with that. I was trying to test it without buying any more hardware, but $100 isn't a big deal.

Thanks for your reply, and I understand your concern. I was just going to zone those ports with the DB nodes on them out of the main fabric in our switch when I tested it, because I also didn't want to introduce extraneous packets to storage.

Thanks again,

Brandon