Having a powerful Unified Storage array like the EMC VNX offers many different capabilities, and an equal number of decisions. The majority of the implementations we do of these boxes are around VMware/virtualization, and in today's leading hypervisors you can provide storage through Fiber Channel, Fiber Channel over Ethernet, iSCSI, or NFS for NAS devices. And of course, the EMC VNX gives you the option for any / all of the above.

Within the context of virtualization for the majority of this post, I'll lay out the best practices for configuration of the VNX and network between the host and the storage, and go a bit further where applicable.

Personal experience has shown that Fiber Channel is still the most common choice customers are making for their storage network / connectivity. When providing storage off of the EMC VNX through Fiber Channel, it's very common to find an upstream Cisco or equivalent fiber switch.

Connectivity for the VNX through Fiber Channels comes off of the "block" side of the array, through either the ports on the Storage Process enclosure itself, or one of the