Dell Compellent Series 30 - Manual (Page 57)

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About Virtual Ports
About Virtual Ports
Storage Center 5.0 introduced the Virtual Ports feature that enables a Storage Center to
dramatically expand the number of available Front End ports. In contrast to the Primary/
Reserved physical front end port designations, Virtual Ports allow all Front End ports to be
used as Primary thereby eliminating the need for Reserved ports. All ports within a network
or fabric are Primary and can read and write IO. If a physical port fails, any Virtual Port in
the fabric can take over for the failed port.
Legacy Mode
In Legacy Mode, Fault Domains associate Primary and Reserved Front End ports to one
another. The Primary and Reserved ports designate the port to which traffic is moved in the
event of a failover or revert. Figure 45 illustrates four legacy port fault domains. Each fault
domain requires a Primary (P) and Reserved (R) port. Reserved ports do not carry data
unless a Primary port fails — thus only half the ports are used.
Figure 45. Primary and Reserved Ports in Legacy Mode
Note It is important to split Primary 1 and Primary 2 between two cards for ease of
conversion.