From G5 to switch to Xserve.

This has been answered in different ways but wanted to get a certain answer or definite options. I'm not a network support guy but have sort of become one through this process, and our official network guy knows little about MACS. So the situation is simple. We have a G5 and it needs to go to the XSERVE. A switch with Qlogic was purchased because we wanted to use 2 G5 to the same xserve. There wasn't enough research done unfortunately but we bought ATTO HBA's to put into the G5. But we don't have any HBA managers such as XSAN or Fiberjet yet because our network guy is convinced we don't need one and XSAN was too expensive and the boss was wanting to keep the price down. I keep telling everyone we need some sort of software to manage the data flow. Well naturally we got corrupted data and wanted to try just a straight shot from only one G5 to the xserve but we have to use the switch now or else we have to spend $2k more for the cable adapter from LC to HDSS2(sp?) cable. We have the 'switch manager' software from Qlogic on a pc and the switch obviously connected via ethernet to that pc. So the question is, if we put a fiber card in the pc that currently has the switch manager and hook that up to the switch along with just ONE G5 and the Xserve, will there be any communication problems and data corruption? Does there absolutely need to be some HBA manager software to tell it where to go? Also, since the switch is hooked up to a pc and if we bought software for the pc that manages the data, will there be cross-platform issues such as the drives being formatted to NFS/HFS+? Does the Xserve need to be formatted specifically either way? My guess is that the HBA software takes care of this but our network guy is trying to find solutions without it for some reason. The PC that the software will be on is Windows 2000 btw.

Thx for reading through the blabber and any information given. Me and another editor has done some research when available and keep coming up with needing some manager. I just needed some answers as to whether it is an absolute need for it to work properly or if there's a work around like what that the network guy is trying to find.

Thx again.