[CentOS] xServes are dead ;-( / SAN Question

Fri Nov 5 23:34:40 UTC 2010
Nicolas Ross <rossnick-lists at cybercat.ca>

Hi !

As some of you might know, Apple has discontinued it's xServes server as of 
january 31st 2011.

We have a server rack with 12 xserves ranging from dual G5's to dual 
quand-core xeon lastest generation, 3 xserve-raid and one activeraid 16 TB 
disk enclosure. We also use xSan to access a shared file system among the 
servers. Services are run from this shared filesystem, spreaded across the 
servers. Some LUNs on the fiber channel network are accessed directly and 
mounted on a case-by-case basis. Those raid volumes are partitioned with a 
GUID partition map, and apple_label type volumes. So they can be mounted by 
name with mount_hfs.

We were on the verge on upgrading at least 6 of our server in a separate 
location (as a backup-site), with another SAN, same aplication etc. But this 
announce has come put a little delay. We do have several servers running 
CentOS (about 10 or so), on intel server platform.


Now with this said, I am searching for documentation on operating a SAN 
under linux. We are looking at Quantum StorNext FS2 product for the SAN 
itselft.

And I am searching info about accessing volumes on a fiber channel network 
by label. I know I can label individual ext3 partition, but how to do so on 
a raid array via fiber channel ?

Basicly, I search for a linux starter guide to fiber channel storage.

Thanks for any insight.

Nicolas