RE: Support for QLogic FC HBA

> Dose anyone know if the QLogic QLA2200F card is supported by 
> ia64 linux?

Yes, Red Hat Linux 7.2 for Itanium has a driver for this card, though I
can't recommend using the driver included there.  I don't consider it stable
enough to trust my data to it.
 
> Qlogic has new driver source code on its web site (all written in C); 
> will this code compile and work correctly.

Since uncovering a number of problems with the qla2x00 driver, (Itanium was
good at bringing problems to light), Red Hat, Dell, and EMC have been
working closely with QLogic to improve their device driver so that it works
well on x86 and ia64 platforms.  The driver that's currently posted to their
site is v6.00 beta 20, which includes a lot of that cleanup work.  However,
being "beta" status, and as such has not passed anyone's rigorous testing
process yet, Dell can't recommend its use on production systems yet.  Once
the driver work is complete and has passed QLogic/Dell/EMC/Red Hat testing,
then we will be happy to recommend that solution.  The EMC Support Matrix
http://www.emc.com/horizontal/interoperability/interop_support_matrices.jsp,
updated monthly, is what our salespeople use to know when a particular
solution has been tested and can be recommended.

> I am purchasing a Dell 7150 server and am considering an FC 
> storage system.

Excellent hardware choice.  :-)  At present Dell doesn't offer an FC storage
system on a PE7150 running Linux for the reasons outlined above.  We'd be
happy to sell you PowerVault 2xxs and PERC 3/QC RAID cards for direct
attached SCSI storage though.  Your salesperson can give you additional
details.

Thanks,
Matt

--
Matt Domsch
Sr. Software Engineer
Dell Linux Solutions www.dell.com/linux
Linux on Dell mailing lists @ http://lists.us.dell.com
#1 US Linux Server provider for 2001!