Finally got to do our first Dell Compellent SC8000 SAN installation today.  The new SC8000 controllers are based on the Dell r710 servers, no more SuperMicro components.  The one thing that really stood out for me, even though it has nothing to do with technology, was the way the controllers were shipped.  The packing is much more efficient and probably more environmentally friendly due to the smaller/compact boxes.

The setup and config of the controllers is the same as it was on the Series 30 and Series 40.  You still have to do the initial configuration via a serial console session via Putty or SecureCRT:

shellaccess developer
platform init hsn set 19XXX
platform init ssn set 19XXX
cs purge all
-reset

From the controller show command output, write down the factory default eth1 addresses from each controller. If you are setting up a dual system, the eth1 address from Controller 2 will be needed during the setup process.

controller ipconfig eth0 172.31.1.103 255.255.0.0 172.31.1.1
controller dnsserver 172.31.10.11 172.31.10.12
controller domainname acme.corp

Front of the new controller "Out in the Wild" - sorry for the blurry picture :(

The SC8000 exposed

The low-profile cage - for this install we were able to swap the brackets on the 10gb iSCSI from full height to low-profile.

Once the system is initially conifugred, the setup is the same as Series 40 through the web GUI.  I should mention that the SC8000 does have an integrated iDRAC card which is nice for management, the SC8000 also has an onboard 10gb Ethernet port for use when you are setting up a dual controller system (which we did today).  Not sure why 10gb, but I'm not complaining.  The management Ethernet port is still 1gb and is used for the system Login, email, alerts, SNMP traps, phone home data, and software updates.  Next week we will start migrating servers from Hyper-V to Citrix Xen Server via the 10gb iSCSI.   Can't wait to put the SC8000 through it's paces.

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