VA7100

[Alexandre Averine]

I would like to turn power battery cache off (hp StorageWorks VA7100).
Is it possible or not (maybe there is special command which I didn't find yet?)?

[Eugeny Brychkov]

If you mean you want to turn cache off then there's no direct command to do it, but you can instruct VA to use 'secure' or even 'single controller' resilency mode (armmgr -J). But it will reduce performace.
Could you please tell us why do you want to turn cache off? Under normal conditions you should not do it...
Eugeny

[Alexandre Averine]

Because I have to transfer this Storage from Moscow to another place. And there is no power
during 5 or more days...

[Eugeny Brychkov]

Ok. There're two ways to turn off VA7100:
- power failure. Simply plug out power cords or cut power with main rack breaker. Of course, it's abnormal condition, but VA keeps cache in its batteries for 5 days (as you said). After power is restored cache is flushed to disks and array continues to operate (alhough, I'm not sure, VA may work in secure mode until batteries will be charged upto the certain level);
- correct power off procedure. You power off VA from the front using its power switch. When you press poff button VA is instructed to flush all the cache to the disks and power down - like soft power down in hpux boxes. After you'll power down VA this way you may check VA controllers at the rear to see battery and DIMM leds are all off (not on or blinking). This way you'll make sure VA is correctly shutted down
Eugeny

[Alexandre Averine]

It's not true. When you do power off (from hpux software "cvsdm" or through directly connected console) - "Battery" LED is still flashing.
If you unplug main power cords - same result.
I think there is only one way: take out battery from controller and then insert it again.

[Eugeny Brychkov]

Please hold on. Do not do it. Zip and attach 'armdsp -a' and 'armlog -e' outputs for me to look into
Eugeny

[Alexandre Averine]

Sorry, its too late.
I hope everything will be OK.
Anyway I'll let you know next week...
A lot of thanks for your help.

[Alexandre Averine]

Sorry, it's too late.
I hope everything will be OK.
Anyway I'll let you know next week...
A lot of thanks for your help.

[Eugeny Brychkov]

Alexandre,
that's not good. Removing any components without the reason (usually failure) and removing components which can be 'touched' only by HP CEs was not a good idea.
Take a look at VA's users manual. It says the following:
- if you shutdown VA using CommandView you receive notification if it was successful or not. Then, if it's successful, not depending on the leds you can be sure data is safe;
- it appears that VA can be queried in shutted down state. So shutdown VA,and try arm commands to see what will it tell you (like 'armdsp -s');
- I asked my expert colleagues and they said that this led will be always flashing, thus we can not know if this led flashing was VA powered down correctly or not. Anyway, after VA will be powered on batteries will be recharged
Eugeny

[Roger_22]

You should never disconnect the batteries without direct supervision from hp.

After a proper shutdown ??? pushing the on/off button and waiting for the power off to occur??? will automatically disconnect the batteries. That is, the batteries do not power the NVRAM in a shutdown state.

If the array was NOT properly shut down when you removed the batteries, than you destroyed the virtual address maps ??? although all the data remains on the disks, the map to its order was destroyed thus the data is unusable.

You???ll discover if the shutdown worked when you power on the array. A ???no map??? error indicates the shutdown was not accomplished correctly. At this point, a ???recovery??? should be attempted (you???ll need access to the VFP), this should re-create the maps, but it cannot recover any data that was in the write cache ??? so it is possible you might have a little data loss.

Your assumption that the batteries must be disconnected during the 5-day transport was incorrect. Always do a proper shutdown, never remove the batteries.