[Info-vax] ES47 2G FC and rx2800 i4 8G FC in same VMS Cluster with Shadowsets on shared storage controller? Is this possible?

[Jon Pinkley]

We currently have a cluster of two ES47s with 2G FC and an EVA6000 with
4G FC and 4G FC switches (StorageWorks 4/32B, HP relabeled Brocade) 

We want to migrate to Itanium rx2800 i4 or i6 servers and a shared FC
storage controller (perhaps 3PAR 8200?).  HPE said that the 3PAR has 16G
FC and they were not very optimistic about us being able to use it with
the ES47's.  They said that FC could go up/down 2 speeds, but others
have said only 1. 

Does anyone have an ES47 with 2G Emulex LP10000 FC HBA in a VMS Cluster
with an Itanium server with 8G FC HBAs and some shared storage
controller?  If so what storage controller?  This would be a migration
config, and we plan to migrate storage from EVA to new storage using VMS
Volume Shadowing (and VMS Clusters). 

I also don't know if FibreChannel forces two communicating devices to
negociated at the same speed, or if it is like a store/forward Ethernet
switch and negociates each link at the lowest speed. 

In other words, we currently have 4G switches, 4G EVA controller, and 2G
ES47.  Does the FC link between the 4G switch and the 4G EVA operate at
4G and the link between the 4G switch and 2G ES47s operate at 2G, and
the switch does store and forward speed conversion like most ethernet
switches do? 

Any pointers to useful documentation would also be appreciated.