HBA replacement and HW path

I guess you can find better answers in ITRC support forums

However I guess the path MAY remain the same if the new card is the same as the old one. Since the HW path depends ALSO on the very specific internal structure of the HBA, PROBABLY MAY remain the same.

My experience shows the ctd will remain.
It also depends on the fcid given by the switch. But since you're not moving the FA, it should also stay the same

so fcid depend on what ?????

FCID depends on the END to END connections. Here it stay same as there in no chnage either in the FA ports at or at host side(due to slot/ctd remain same). But WWN changes so you have to do the masking again unless you are having "alias" configured for zoning

so we can say that
HW path depend on
-switch port ID
- LUN ID
-scsi card bus
-FA port
????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
so if I change switch port or hba slot or fa port then new hw path will be generated
Am I right ??????

Only end connections/terminations. Consider an ISL connection and if any port changes occurs at the intermediate level then the FCID still remain same as the end connections did not change

HBA |>------<|>Switch<|>----------<|>FA

in this case changing switch port wont effect HW path , since FCID depend on end to end connection so fcid wont change
AM I right ?????????

FCID is a 3 bytes identifier used to route frames in FC fabric. It's assigned by the switch to the connected host/storage port (to connected N_PORT).

Frames will flow between switches depending on their FCID.
The "name server" matches WWN with their corresponding FCID.

In a word, it's the address in the fabric of a given port (and its corresponding WWN).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibre_Channel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched_fabric

Coming back to your issue ... The FCID is the last part of the hardware path thus keeping the same FCID but changing some other part of the hw-path WILL change controller number.

Message was edited by:
Stefano Del Corno

Changing the host port on the switch won't affect the HW path.
Changing the STORAGE port on the switch WILL affect the HW path.

thanks for helping me here