topic Re: Disk compatibility with VMS in Operating System - OpenVMS

Disk compatibility with VMS

owilliams — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 10:01:14 GMT

I have 50GB Luns that is OPEN-V is this compatible with VMS?

Re: Disk compatibility with VMS

Hein van den Heuvel — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 10:25:49 GMT

So you are using XP-storage? Or Hitachy?
Should work.

There is an active discussion in this forum which is probably of interest to you:

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1139926

Also:

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1137513

Finally there is the support statement in:

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/roadmap/openvms_roadmaps_files/openvms_roadmaps_notes.pdf

So why are you asking?
'Just' planning or is there something that does not work for you?

What seems to be the problem? Specific errors? Intermediate displays you can attach as a text file?

Cheers,
Hein.

Re: Disk compatibility with VMS

owilliams — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 10:53:09 GMT

One of our disk is running low on space and we were planning on adding this as a solution. What do you think?

Re: Disk compatibility with VMS

Volker Halle — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 11:10:36 GMT

Is the 'disk that is getting full' also a SAN disk ($1$DGAx) ? And part of a shadowset ? If so, are you ready for DDS and DVE ?

Do you have other 'OPEN-V' disks in use on that system ?

Volker.

Re: Disk compatibility with VMS

owilliams — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 11:58:49 GMT

Yes it is a SAN disk.

Re: Disk compatibility with VMS

Volker Halle — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 12:15:29 GMT

Your SAN controller may offer the functionality of increasing the size of a disk 'on-the-fly'. An EVA (HSV) can do this.

If you're running at least OpenVMS V7.3-2, you could use DVE (Dynamic Volume Expansion) to also increase the size of your OpenVMS disk in the running system. Check with SHOW DEV/FULL $1$DGAx: for the Expansion Size Limit of that disk. You can expand a disk up to that limit online with SET VOL/SIZE, once you've increased the size of the underlying disk.

If your disk has not been set up for DVE, you can do this with SET VOL/LIMIT, but this requires that you need to privately mount that disk, so you need to temporarily dismount it (cluster-wide) for this operation.

For a recent discussion about DVE, see this topic:

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1139928

Volker.

Re: Disk compatibility with VMS

owilliams — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:41:30 GMT

Our storage people have added the disk. How can I verify that it was added correctly?

Re: Disk compatibility with VMS

Volker Halle — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:45:31 GMT

Can you already see the new SAN disk as $1$DGAnnn: ? Has it been presented to your OpenVMS System ?

$ MCR SYSMAN IO AUTO/LOG

Does it discover the new disk ? If so, INIT the disk with a scratch label and try to mount it.

Volker.

Re: Disk compatibility with VMS

owilliams — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:58:22 GMT

Here is the output:
%SYSMAN-I-OUTPUT, command execution on node NRCAVA
%IOGEN-I-PREFIX, searching for ICBM with prefix SYS$
%IOGEN-I-PREFIX, searching for ICBM with prefix DECW$
%IOGEN-I-SCSIPOLL, scanning for devices through SCSI port PKA0
%IOGEN-I-FIBREPOLL, scanning for devices through FIBRE port PGA0
%IOGEN-I-CONFIGURED, configured device DGA1550
%IOGEN-E-LOADERR, error configuring device OHA0, driver SYS$OHCIDRIVER.EXE
-RMS-E-FNF, file not found
%IOGEN-I-FIBREPOLL, scanning for devices through FIBRE port PGB0
%IOGEN-F-FTLIOERR, fatal I/O error while trying to access device
%IOGEN-I-FIBREPOLL, scanning for devices through FIBRE port PGC0
%IOGEN-I-CONFIGURED, configured device DGA1550
%IOGEN-I-SCSIPOLL, scanning for devices through SCSI port PKB0

Re: Disk compatibility with VMS

Volker Halle — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 14:05:08 GMT

So the new disk seems to be DGA1550.
Try MOUNT/FOR $1$DGA1550: first to see, if you can do IOs to that disk. It should mount with an empty label - that way you know, that this disk has never been initialized on OpenVMS.

Then

$ DISM $1$DGA1550:
$ INIT $1$DGA1550: scratch/LIMIT
$ MOUNT $1$DGA1550: scratch
$ SHOW DEVICE/FULL $1$DGA1550:

check the expected size

$ ANAL/DISK $1$DGA1550:

$ SHOW DEV/MULTI $1$DGA1550
and check for the correct number of pathes to the disk.

Feel free to post the commands and results in an attached .TXT file.

Volker.

Re: Disk compatibility with VMS

owilliams — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 14:22:53 GMT

Here is the output from the commands provided.

Re: Disk compatibility with VMS

Hein van den Heuvel — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 14:59:03 GMT

So there seems to be useable 50GB device behind DGA1550:

"Disk $1$DGA1550: (NRCAVA), device type HP OPEN-V,... Total blocks 113890560"

The storage folks can probably confirm the WWID values.

There was a problem with the INIT /LIMIT.
Either the OpenVMS version you are using is way old, or someone redefined INIT.
- Which OpenVMS version?
- SHOW SYMB INIT

Anyway... You could move forward and try the straight init.
Personally I would recommend you first do: $MOUNT/OVER=ID $1$DGA1550:

And make sure this is not storage in use before the init.

You are close to bringing the new storage to live.

However, in view of the questions asked and information provide I would urge you to consult with a peer or product support before really moving forward. This to make sure an optimal configuration is made and no damage will be done.

Also... if more info is needed the PLEASE attache it as SIMPLE TEXT file and clean out typo's, leaving just real commands, results and erors.

Cheers,
Hein van den Heuvel

Re: Disk compatibility with VMS

Volker Halle — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 09:57:16 GMT

As Hein has already said, the disk looks good and it's not been initialized before on OpenVMS. You're probably running an older version of OpenVMS (less than V7.3-2). Find out with:

$ SHOW SYS/NOPROCESS

Go ahead and initialize the disk and mount it system-wide. Then you are ready to use it. If you know more about what you'll be putting on that disk in the future (no. of files etc.), you may want use use some more specific qualifiers on the INIT command.

Volker.

Re: Disk compatibility with VMS

owilliams — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 13:30:10 GMT

OpenVMS V7.2-2

Re: Disk compatibility with VMS

owilliams — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 13:31:59 GMT

Would you recomend any qualifier as a standard?

Re: Disk compatibility with VMS

Hein van den Heuvel — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 14:06:57 GMT

With 7.2 you are limited to about 1 million clusters = allocations units: (256 blocks of bitmap.sys). And thus also a max of 1 million files.

While the minimum clustersize will be 109, I would recommend /CLUST=128 or 112 (128 - 16)

If you expect many (100,000+) little file then this many be too much waste (10% of the disk). For fewer ( less that 10,000 ) larger files it matters little (less than 1% waste in rounding).

If that cluster size is high (more than those 100,000 files expected) then you may want to go back to the storage folks and request 2 times 25GB instead of 1 times 50.

Better still... get an upgrade to OpenVMS going. At least 7.3-2 but why not 8.3?

I would highly recommend you anticipate the number of files expected + 10% and and indicated that value to /HEADER

Might as well make sure the default MAXFILES is appropiate while there (about 1/2 million).

I would also chose /INDEX=BEGIN but that's more taste / guttfeel than well founded advise.

Enjoy,
Hein.

Re: Disk compatibility with VMS

Jan van den Ende — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 11:27:15 GMT

Hein wrote

>>>
With 7.2 you are limited to about 1 million clusters = allocations units: (256 blocks of bitmap.sys). And thus also a max of 1 million files.
<<<

Hein, are you sure of that? As far as my (regrettable quite fallible) bio-memory remembers, the limits you mention were lifted at the intro of 7.2

VERY nice features as Dynamic Volume Expansion and Dissimilar Device Shadowing were introduced during 7.3-2, perhaps uou are confusing those?

But, owilliams, also since 7.2-2 (which introduced SAN support) MANY and important advances in SAN use were introduced. If you are to profit from SAN, you REALLY should move to at least 7.3-2 with the later UPDATES; or better to 8.3.

fwiw,

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

Re: Disk compatibility with VMS

Uwe Zessin — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:35:17 GMT

Here we are:
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/73final/6017/6017pro_030.html

See "Limits of Storage and Index File Bitmaps"

pre-V7.2:
255 blocks * 512 byte/block * 8 bits / byte = 1,044,480 bits or clusters

V7.2 and up:
65,535 blocks * 512 byte/block * 8 bits / byte = 268,431,360 bits

Today, you can even initialize a disk with about 137 harware GigaBytes using a cluster factor of 1.

Re: Disk compatibility with VMS

owilliams — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 11:18:16 GMT

Sorry to ask such a question. But how do I get it to stay mounted?

Re: Disk compatibility with VMS

Volker Halle — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 11:22:55 GMT

To make sure that the disk is mounted again after a system reboot, add the necessary mount command into your system startup file, typically SYS$MANAGER:SYSTARTUP_VMS.COM

Volker.