Does ONTAP 9 support FC back 2 back? Or is NPIV still enforced? | NetApp | Page 1

rancid gulch Oct 10, 2025, 9:39 AM

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Small setup with only two ESXi servers... and for some reason the customer wants to run FibreChannel... (don't ask me why)... but maybe the investment in one or two FC switches will change his mind 😉 Because AFAIK back2back connected FC isn't supported?

Alternative would be iSCSI or NVMe ? I think NFS also is a pain to setup like this because the ESXi hosts will see it as different datastores?

steep ibex Oct 10, 2025, 9:45 AM

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NPIV is required

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NVMe/FC is also NPIV-only. iSCSI or NVMe/TCP would work

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NFS can only work if you buy a (cheap) 10G switch 😉

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E-Series supports FC direct-attach, so if they don't need SnapShots, DataFabric integration, and all that, this might be an alternative

rancid gulch Oct 10, 2025, 10:03 AM

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OK... they need snapshots and snapmirror so E-series is out...

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..maybe they have the right FC licenses on their Nexus 9k switches...

#Does ONTAP 9 support FC back 2 back? Or is NPIV still enforced?