OpenVMS and the Storage subsystem HDS 9960

[Uwe Zessin]

Ouch! That looks like a hack to me if unit numbers cannot be assigned by the system/storage manager. What happens if you want to use two arrays?

Last year I was able to attend a session held by an IBM consultant who told a bit about their work to make their 'Shark' storage array compatible with OpenVMS. OpenvMS requires a vendor-specific SCSI mode page to contain the unit number and the IBM people abused another field in their user interface to set that number.

You _always_ have to take care about the proper 'host mode'! I have heard a tale obout an AlphaServer GS160 running a big SAP R/3 instance that crashed because the OPERATING_SYSTEM was improperly set on the HSG connections.

So it looks like Hitachi/HP have slightly improved their arrays for AlphaServer support. I remember when one of your customers bought a Lightning it took HDS (and/or some subcontractor) quite some time to have Tru64 Unix properly recognize the disks. At that time a poll via WWIDMGR on the console trapped the program in an endless cycle - we could see constant activity on the switch port.


Mike, what is the 'OJT way'? Is that like being thrown into cold water to 'learn swimming'?

[Mike Naime]

Uwe: That is about it. I had someone to show me the basics of how the simulator and VMS worked. The rest I had to figure out myself. I spent the better part of 2 years in HELP during my thumb-twiddle time on 12 hour shifts waiting for something to break.

I learned Alphaserver/SAN/HSG setup a very similar way. Someone showed me the basics, and I read the manuals from there.

I did get to attend a week long in-house training course for the EVA. (Model 1) but that really did not prepare us for an actual implementation, or using the SSSU.

[Uwe Zessin]

I see. Judging from your posts here and on comp.os.vms I'd say you have done a good job, my compliments.

The EVA is a pretty complicated thing. It takes some time to grasp the basics - I speak from experience ;-)

[Mike Naime]

I now have a 20TB Thunder on loan from Hitachi installed. We should begin testing it in the next week or so. The Loaner XP1024 from HP should arrive any day.

Mike

[arun sanghvi]

What version of VMS  are you using with HDS 9960?

Thanks.