Configuring SAN Pin Groups

This chapter includes the following sections:

SAN Pin Groups

Cisco UCS uses SAN pin groups to pin Fibre Channel traffic from a vHBA on a server to an uplink Fibre Channel port on the fabric interconnect. You can use this pinning to manage the distribution of traffic from the servers.

Note

In Fibre Channel switch mode, SAN pin groups are irrelevant. Any existing SAN pin groups will be ignored.

To configure pinning for a server, you must include the SAN pin group in a vHBA policy. The vHBA policy is then included in the service profile assigned to that server. All traffic from the vHBA will travel through the I/O module to the specified uplink Fibre Channel port.

You can assign the same pin group to multiple vHBA policies. As a result, you do not need to manually pin the traffic for each vHBA.

Important:

Changing the target interface for an existing SAN pin group disrupts traffic for all vHBAs which use that pin group. The fabric interconnect performs a log in and log out for the Fibre Channel protocols to re-pin the traffic.

Configuring a SAN Pin Group

In a system with two fabric interconnects, you can associate the pin group with only one fabric interconnect or with both fabric interconnects.

Procedure
      Command or Action Purpose
    Step 1 UCS-A# scope fc-uplink  

    Enters Fibre Channel uplink mode.

     
    Step 2 UCS-A /fc-uplink # create pin-group pin-group-name  

    Creates a Fibre Channel (SAN) pin group with the specified name, and enters Fibre Channel uplink pin group mode.

     
    Step 3 UCS-A /fc-uplink/pin-group # set descr description   (Optional)

    Provides a description for the pin group.

    Note   

    If your description includes spaces, special characters, or punctuation, you must begin and end your description with quotation marks. The quotation marks will not appear in the description field of any show command output.

     
    Step 4 UCS-A /fc-uplink/pin-group # set target {a | b | dual} port slot-num / port-num   (Optional)

    Sets the Fibre Channel pin target to the specified fabric and port.

     
    Step 5 UCS-A /fc-uplink/pin-group # commit-buffer  

    Commits the transaction to the system configuration.

     

    The following example creates a SAN pin group named fcpingroup12, provides a description for the pin group, sets the pin group target to slot 2, port 1, and commits the transaction: 

    UCS-A# scope fc-uplink
UCS-A /fc-uplink # create pin-group fcpingroup12
UCS-A /fc-uplink/pin-group* # set descr "This is my pin group #12"
UCS-A /fc-uplink/pin-group* # set target a port 2/1
UCS-A /fc-uplink/pin-group* # commit-buffer
UCS-A /fc-uplink/pin-group #
    What to Do Next

    Include the pin group in a vHBA template.