topic Re: MSA1500 Active/Active Successful in MSA Storage

MSA1500 Active/Active Successful

Muhammad Imran — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 03:55:19 GMT

Hi.I have recently updated my MSA1500 Box to Active/Active. I just want to know from the professionals of this form that I did everything successfully or still I need some configurations in MSA1500 to boost up the performance.
Please have a look at show tech_support of both controllers in attached files.
Let me know what should I do more to get excellent performance from this Active/Active MSA1500?

Re: MSA1500 Active/Active Successful

Muhammad Imran — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 07:58:08 GMT

Look below ACU output.
RAID 6 (ADG) status Enabled
Host Controller PCI Based Fibre Channel Adapter
Host Controller Location Slot 2
Host Controller Adapter ID 210000E08B8E2BFD
Arbitrated Loop Physical Address (HOST) Domain : 1, Area : 1, Port : 0
Chassis Name SGA0624044
Chassis Serial Number SGA0624044
Firmware Version 6.86
Rebuild Priority Low
Expand Priority Low
Current Surface Scan Delay 3 sec
Number of Arrays 3
Number of Logical Drives 4
Number of Physical Drives 8
Physical Drives Attached to Port 2 Box 2 : Bay 1, 72.8 GB (Parallel SCSI)
Box 2 : Bay 2, 72.8 GB (Parallel SCSI)
Box 2 : Bay 3, 72.8 GB (Parallel SCSI)
Box 2 : Bay 4, 72.8 GB (Parallel SCSI)

Physical Drives Attached to Port 4 Box 2 : Bay 11, 72.8 GB (Parallel SCSI)
Box 2 : Bay 12, 72.8 GB (Parallel SCSI)
Box 2 : Bay 13, 72.8 GB (Parallel SCSI)
Box 2 : Bay 14, 72.8 GB (Parallel SCSI)

All Physical Drives Assigned Yes

Redundancy Settings
Redundant Path OK
Redundancy Status OK
Redundancy Mode Active-Active
Controller 1 Serial Number PB9840NX3TA06H
Controller 2 Serial Number P56350HX3SZ01T
Preferred Path Mode Automatic

Controller 1 Preferred Path
Logical Drive 1
Logical Drive 2
Logical Drive 3
Logical Drive 4

Controller 2 Preferred Path None

Array Accelerator
Present Yes
Cache Status Enabled
Accelerator Ratio 70% Read /30% Write
Read Cache Size 180 MB
Write Cache Size 76 MB
Battery Pack Count 1
Battery Status OK

You can see all the logical drives path is under controller1. Controller 2 is not doing anything however it is A/A setup.
Why is like this?
Please guide me to improve this setup.

Re: MSA1500 Active/Active Successful

John Kufrovich — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 14:31:16 GMT

A/A is loaded.

With windows and MSA, you have two preferred paths.

1). HBA port to MSA controller.

2). MSA controller to MSA LUN.

You will need to check your MPIO settings and the load balancing scheme. With ACU or MSA cli, you can manually assign controller/lun ownership.

With a little more information on the type of applications running I may be able to make some recommendations. SQL, Exchange, blackberry server?

Re: MSA1500 Active/Active Successful

Muhammad Imran — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 23:02:52 GMT

Thanks for your reply.
I am using windows 2003 EE R2 and MS SQL2000 as a clustering application.
Logical Disk 1 contains Quroum
Logical Disk 2 contains MSDTC
Logical Disk 3 contains Databse Binary files
Logical Disk 4 contains SQL T-log

So What is your recommendation for load balance+redundancy as well for this setup and how can I do it?
I appreciate your recommendations.

Re: MSA1500 Active/Active Successful

Muhammad Imran — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 04:53:35 GMT

Any suggestions for the above mentioned setup?

Re: MSA1500 Active/Active Successful

John Kufrovich — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 16:00:15 GMT

So far everything looks good.

With ACU you can manual assign LUNs to particular controllers.

With FF MPIO, you can allow HBA load balancing or set a preferred path. If you set a preferred path, make sure you align the HBA->MSA controller ->LUN.

e.g. HBA port 0 -> MSA controller 0 -> MSA controller 0 LUNs.

Set you controller to at least 50/50.

Re: MSA1500 Active/Active Successful

Muhammad Imran — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 22:34:08 GMT

Thanks for your reply.Can you please guide me with FF MPIO that how can I make load balance on HBAs. I have tried it from HP MPIO DSM Manager, when I right click there are 4, 5 options like Set Load Balance RR, Set Load balance SQB like. What are all these? However when I try to click on anyone it gives me error like you can't do this on a clusterd disk. For detailed error message you can see the attached picture.
Waiting ro another kind solution.

Re: MSA1500 Active/Active Successful

John Kufrovich — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 06:31:03 GMT

Never seen this msg. before. I'll have to make a few calls to get an answer on the popup.

Select an individual LUN, in the right screen you will seen the MSA controllers id, if you right click on either controller, you can set the preferred path.

Re: MSA1500 Active/Active Successful

Muhammad Imran — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 07:20:40 GMT

"Select an individual LUN, in the right screen you will seen the MSA controllers id, if you right click on either controller, you can set the preferred path."

I did it but the same error message.
You can see in the attached file.

Re: MSA1500 Active/Active Successful

John Kufrovich — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 11:58:23 GMT

In the right pane, can you double click the LUN. You should see two MSA controllers associated with that LUN.

Re: MSA1500 Active/Active Successful

Muhammad Imran — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 23:59:33 GMT

I am really thankfull for your reply.
I have assigned the preferred paths successfully.
But one question. Is it possible to make load balaning on both FC HBAs in server?
Because when I m trying to make LB it still shows me error message that it is not possible on clustered resource.

Re: MSA1500 Active/Active Successful

Donhickey — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 17:45:30 GMT

Hello , I had the same problem on a customer site . Are you saying that HP MPIO DSM does not work and the pathing has to be done via the msa cli or the ACU.
We found the pathing could not be changed via the HP MPIO DSM

Re: MSA1500 Active/Active Successful

Muhammad Imran — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 00:06:16 GMT

You have to set it from both.
First define preferred paths in ACU then select active path per LUN in MPIO.

Re: MSA1500 Active/Active Successful

Eugene G. — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 13:08:11 GMT

Hello,
we've installed Active-Active Firmware on our new MSA1500cs - see the same issues as reported. Running 3-node W3K cluster, HP MPIO DSM manager from the latest support CD would not allow to set any kind of load balancing if the LUN is a clustered resource, basic fail-over only allowed.
Eugene.

Re: MSA1500 Active/Active Successful

Muhammad Imran — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 16:35:02 GMT

Same issue with me also. When I select LB it shows error message that you can'nt do it on clustered resource.

Re: MSA1500 Active/Active Successful

John Kufrovich — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 21:32:48 GMT

To everyone,

Give me a few days, I'll ask the MSA DSM developer.

Regards,

Re: MSA1500 Active/Active Successful

John Kufrovich — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 06:09:22 GMT

The readme of the MSA DSM states that this is a known problem.

The LB of cluster resources issue will be addressed in 2.x release of MSA DSM.

Re: MSA1500 Active/Active Successful

John Kufrovich — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 07:47:05 GMT

Let me add one more item,

If you leave the MSA on automatic(Implicit) failover and you elect to set a preferred_path with our HBA settings. The MSA will eventually move the LUN under the correct controller matching your HBA preferred_path.

If you Manually assign the LUNs to a particular controller and elect to set a preferred_path with our HBA setting.
You will need to know the MSA controllers Serial number and the LUN ID number. You can use the MSA cli or ACU, "select msa controller" then "more informtion" or select LUN and "more information"