VA7400 - Data Unavailable

[Brian Duthie_1]

Array in same state had a partitial rebuild the failed.

See latest logs...

[Eugeny Brychkov]

Brian,
armmgr -J command will not repair VA. If you'll set VA up to restricted or secure mode, I believe write cache will be disabled. After you'll repair VA (reformat it) this setting may help (or may not, I do not know).
I think there's something wrong with VA. It should be invulnerable to power failures. You need HP to troubleshoot and maybe replace some parts :o(
Please keep us posted
Eugeny

[Eugeny Brychkov]

To be correct on the 'invulnerable' word... I meant VA should come back ok after power failure without these data unavailable problems your VA experiencing
Eugeny

[Vincent Fleming]

That last log you posted is very interesting. Have you noticed that all the errors are being reported by MC/1 (controller-1)???

There's no mention of MC/2 in the file.

Also, it's pretty obvious that MC/1 is having trouble accessing the back-end FC loop(s).

Try this...

Remove controller MC/1, and run off MC/2 only.

If your errors go away - it proves that you need a new MC/1 controller.

Either way, you should log a hardware problem with HP service, and have a serice tech come out and look at it.

Good luck,

Vince

[Brian Duthie_1]

Good Day Vincent, Thank you for checking the logs again.

But as you can see above HP changed a controller. It was the one in MC/1 .... Did not help.

We also still have the call open with HP and they are as baffeled as I am at the moment.

Thank you. Brian

[Stuart Urquhart]

Just curious, assuming the problem did lie with a controller, were HP ever able to explain why you ended up with a locked array and rebuild failed?

We now have two incidents on two VA's (both running HP18) where a marginal error (one on an LCC and one apparantly on a disk) have led to array lockups. And one totally unexplained lock up.

[Eugeny Brychkov]

Stuart,
1. as a part of system/SAN administration admin should review VA logs regularly to see if there's anything wrong or suspicious. If there is - call HP;
2. If VA locked up for some reason - DO NOT do anything by yourself. Do not try to reboot hosts, power off VA (with its front power switch or cutting power to it). Usually these lockups can be resolved by resetting (reseating, or removing) one of VA controllers. Log should show which controller.
Usually 'big problems' arise from 'little suspicious events' thus revieweing logs ('armdsp -a' and 'armlog -e') and proactively logging HP call in time is the best practice
Eugeny

[Stuart Urquhart]

Eugeny,

Thanks for the reply. We have followed through all our VA problems with HP but have been very disappointed with the results. It took them two weeks to isolate the LCC problem during which time we suffered a considerable amount of downtime and eventually ended up being lumbered with a 36hr restore. I was really just curious if Brian had received any satisfactory response from HP.

I think I may start a "VA Problems" thread.

Cheers,

Stuart

[Gregg H]

Hi Stuart

We are going to try and get the money to trade in our 13 month old VA7400 on a more reliable SAN. We have had it with HP support and the unreliable 7400. :(

We are also going to trade in all of our Prolient servers and change laptops too. The old compaq understood support was a key component of quality.

HP is now on my do not buy list with purchasing.

Gregg

[Stuart Urquhart]

Greg,

We've now had enough as well and are replacing the VAs with EMC DMX. Interestingly HP weren't offering much of a trade in on the VAs.

Cheers,

Stuatr