Preface

About this guide

This guide describes how to cable new or convert existing Network Appliance^TM F810, F820, F825, F840, and F880 filers and Fibre Channel disk shelves into clusters. This guide does not cover basic system or network administration, which is covered in the System Administration Guide.

Audience

This guide is for qualified system administrators and service personnel who are familiar with storage appliances and Fibre Channel disk shelves from NetApp®--the Network Appliance Company^TM, which features Serving Data by Design^TM, and who

Need to cable new filers and disk shelves into a clustered system
Have two of the same filers and want to convert these filers into a cluster

Terminology

This guide uses the following terms:

Appliance refers to an F810, F820, F840, or F880 filer.
Node refers to a local or remote filer in an F810, F820, F840, or F880 clustered system.
Disk shelf refers to a Fibre Channel StorageShelf FC7, Fibre Channel StorageShelf FC8, Fibre Channel StorageShelf FC9, or Fibre Channel DiskShelf14.
Mirrored cluster refers to a cluster running the SyncMirror^TM product, where the nodes are separated by between 30 and 500 meters.
Non-switched MetroCluster refers to a cluster running syncmirror_local and cluster_remote, where the nodes are separated by more than 30 meters and up to 500 meters.
MetroCluster with QuickLoop refers to a cluster running syncmirror_local and cluster_remote that is cabled to Fibre Channel switches, where the nodes are separated by more than 500 meters.
Fabric Attached MetroCluster refers to a cluster running syncmirror_local and cluster_remote, where the nodes and disk shelves are attached to two pairs of Fibre Channel switches, where the nodes and disk shelves are not cabled together in traditional cluster fashion, and where the nodes are separated by more than 500 meters.
FC HBA for Disk or FC HBA refers to the dual port Fibre Channel HBA adapter that connects the node to the switch or to the disks.

Command conventions

You can enter filer commands on the system console or from any client that has access to the filer using Telnet. In examples of commands run on a UNIX® workstation, this guide uses the command syntax and output of SunOS 4.1x. If you use a different version of UNIX, the command syntax and output might be different.

Keyboard conventions

This guide uses capitalization and some abbreviations to refer to the keys on the keyboard. The keys on your keyboard might not be labeled exactly as they are in this guide.

What is in this guide...	What it means...
hyphen (-)	Used to separate individual keys. For example Ctrl-D means holding down the Ctrl key while pressing the D key.
Enter	Used to refer to the key that generates a carriage return, although the key is named Return on some keyboards.
type	Used to mean pressing one or more keys on the keyboard.
enter	Used to mean pressing one or more keys and then pressing the Enter key.

Formatting conventions

The following table lists the kinds of formatting this guide uses to identify special information.

Formatting convention	Type of information
Italic type	Words or characters that require special attention. Placeholders for information you must supply. For example, if the guide requires you to enter the `arp -d hostname` command, you enter the characters "arp -d" followed by the actual name of the host. Book titles in cross-references.
Monospaced font	Command and daemon names. Information displayed on the system console or other computer monitors. The contents of files.
`Bold monospaced` font	Words or characters you type. What you type is always shown in lowercase letters, unless you must type it in uppercase letters for it to work properly.

Special messages

This guide contains special messages that are described as follows:

Note
A note contains important information that helps you install or operate the system efficiently.

Caution
A caution contains instructions that you must follow to avoid damage to the equipment, a system crash, or loss of data.

WARNING
A warning contains instructions that you must follow to avoid personal injury.