HSG60 and Qlogic QLA2340

[Milan Lesnik]

Hi

My questions are simple:

1. Is HSG60 (software version ACS 8.7L-0) SPIFFI compliant (http://www.qlogic.com/)? On Qlogic site I've found document (http://www.qlogic.com/interopguide/vendor.asp?vendor_id=252) where HP tested HSG80 and I believe that HSG60 is also SPIFFI compliant.

2. If HSG60 isn't SPIFFI compliant, can I still use the Qlogic's failover feature or do I need to buy special software (for example HP Secure Path)?

Milan

[Uwe Zessin]

Hmmm, never heard about SPIFFI and Google does not give any clue. Can you provide some more information?

What operating system is involved? Anyway, to comply with HP's support lists you would need Secure Path.

[Milan Lesnik]

Hi

SPIFFI stands for "Specification for Platform-Independent Failover and Failback Integration" and I think Qlogic has invented this thing.

Our infrastructure is: two HSG60s, two FC switches and some servers (WIN 2k with Secure Path, VMS, and Linux) with two FC HBAs (Emulex HBAs). I know that Secure Path works (we replaced the old swithces with the new ones during bussines hours).

We want to integrate new server (2k3 standard edition sp1 integrated, HP support pack 7.30, Qlogic's HBAs with HP's drivers from support pack 7.30, ...) into this SAN infrastructure and everything works except failover. I have tested failover (manualy disabled one port on FC switch) and it doesn't work.

Here is the answer from Qlogic (I sent email to Qlogic support):

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SPIFFI compliance has a few main requirements:

1) The target device is a disk or RAID subsystem offering random access block storage through one or more LUNs.

2) The target device is a Fibre Channel (FC-SCSI) device, and has at least two and no more than four physical ports.

3) The target device ports operate in an active-active mode, where all of the ports are accessible at all times on the Fibre Channel.

4) The target device has a single world-wide node name that is common across all ports, and a separate world-wide port name for each port.

5) The target device offers the same LUNs on each port, and will respond consistently to Inquiry, Report LUNs, and Read Capacity commands for each LUN on each port.

6) The target device supports automatic volume takeover. That is, the device allows a LUN to be accessed from one port, then accessed from another port, and will maintain data integrity.


Some storage arrays that are known to not work with our failover drivers: - EMC Symmetrix - EMC Clarrion - Any HDS array - HP EVA - HP MSA (coming soon for Linux?) Arrays that can be configured to work with QLogic HBA failover: - IBM FastT - nStor Wahoo - StorageTek D-Series - LSI Metastor - Apple XServe RAID - NexSAN ATABoy and ATABeast - XIOTech Magnitude - Dell PowerVault - Eurologic/Adaptec SANbloc - Xyratex - JBODs
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I still don't know if HSG60 is SPIFFI compliant or not. :-(

Regards Milan

[Uwe Zessin]

OK. Neither the HSG80 nor the HSG60 are 'SPIFFI' compliant, because they respond differently to LUN inquires, depending on whether a particular controller is owning a container or not.

[Milan Lesnik]

Hi


Thanks for your help.

Regards Milan