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Technical white paper | HP StoreVirtual 4000 Storage

Nice-to-know

• RSTP and MSTP achieve faster convergence on uplink or ISL ports than the traditional STP protocol.

• MSTP and RSTP are industry-standard IEEE spanning tree protocols; and are the default protocols supported by switch

manufacturers adhering to open and industry-standard network protocols.

• A switch port connected to the network interface of a server or storage node is commonly considered an edge port. This

type of port should not be congured to participate in the STP protocol process.

Best practices

• Do not enable RSTP/MSTP on a switch access port connected to end stations (i.e., iSCSI initiator or storage node); if

RSTP/MSTP is enabled, congure the port as an edge port.

• Congure BPDU guard on ports congured as edge ports to prevent ports congured as edge port from sending or

receiving BPDU.

• Minimize the dependence on RSTP/MSTP (i.e., use Stacking, Virtual Switching Technology, IRF)

• Enable RSTP/MSTP on all ports between switches.

• Set the root bridge manually rather than allowing the switches to go through the root bridge election process.

• Congure RSTP/MSTP in all cases where two or more switches are interconnected via more than one physical link to

help minimize the chance of a network loop caused by improper congurations (i.e., IRF, link aggregation group, and

stacking of switches).

Unicast storm control

A trac storm occurs when an excessive amount of packets create network trac that is transmitted by a single port and

sensed by the switch as a trac storm (i.e., denial of service). ISCSI trac is bursty in nature and may sometimes utilize a

very high link percentage, which is incorrectly sensed as a trac storm by the switch.

Best practices

HP recommends disabling unicast storm control on iSCSI ports.

Recommended network switches for HP StoreVirtual 4000 Storage

HP Networking has an extensive portfolio of Ethernet switches that are ideally suited for iSCSI deployments. These

switches are designed to deliver high-performance, low-latency, and wire-speed Layer 2 to 4 network services.

HP Networking top of rack series of switches oer unmatched combination of 1GbE and 10GbE ports density, high-

availability architecture, Intelligent Resilient Framework (IRF) technology as well as a full range of Layer 2 and or Layer

3 features depending on switch selection. These switches are built to support open and industry-standards networking

protocol.

These switches can be deployed within the network core or as a high-performance switch in the convergence layer or

network edge of SMB and enterprise networks.

Listed below is a selection of recommended top of rack models. These are the 3800, 5830, 5920, and 6600 series.

HP Storevirtual 4000 White Paper

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