Windows 2000 connect to the same SAN disk space?

[curian]

Does any know if it is possible to have multiple (3) Windows 2000 Advanced Servers connected to the SAME EMC SAN disk space. These servers will need to read and write to this same disk space.

Thank you in advance for any help,
Chris

 

[diebels]

You will need some clustered filesystem to take advantage of multiple hosts using the same SAN disk.

 

[crowe]

a lot depends on the configuration. Does you EMC device support (or is licensed) for access logics? Are you using direct connection or switched fabric? I guess in the end, it all boils down to the "servers will need to read and write to this same disk space" part of your post. They will NOT be able to concurrently. Unless there is a solution to allow all three systems to "know" what the others are doing from a LVM standpoint. This might be what diebels means by a clustered filestem, but most cluster solutions are active/passive, not concurrent disk access to the same disk.

crowe

 

[danamburgey]

Ya, what they said

Seriously, all you need to acomplish the multi-disk-presentation is the *AccessLogix* software license. (if you have/use Storage Groups, inside Navisphere Manager, then AccessLogix is installed/enabled).. Also you can verify this by right-clicking on the storage array, selecting the software tab, and looking for the "Base" software... AccessLogix=Base

Also, like they stated, only ONE machine can actually mount the volume at any time, and you must use a cluster-service (MSCS or etc) to allow for ownership of the volumes...

If you need all (3) machines to actually Read/Write the volume at the same time, you have to do a different solution..

Actually present (3) identical size luns to the (3) machines... and use a host-based disk mirroring software (network based) to keep the volumes sync'd