EVA4000 persistent reservation

[Andras Mohr]

Is it possible that EVA4000 doesn't support the persistent reservation command?
I have try to intall a Windows 2008 failover cluster on it but the Failover cluster validate configuration said: this disk doesn't support Persistent reservation SCSI-3 command.
The firmware on the EVA4K is 5031. Maybe the newest firmware (6100) solve this problem?

[Uwe Zessin · Accepted solution]

The EVA has been able to do "some kind of persistent reservation" since version 1 to be able to support Tru64 Unix TruCluster configurations, but maybe the support was limited.

Now, Windows 2008 is not even supported with XCS V5.031 controller software. V5.100 is the oldest supported version, but V6.110 is the recommended one.

[Andras Mohr]

Hi Uwe,

Thanks for the answer. I Think in this case I have to contact with our HP support. As far as I know making a firmware upgrade on the EVA4K is allowed only by official HP support personnel.

[Uwe Zessin]

Yes, XCS V5.100 is the first release that allows customer self upgrades to a newer version.

[IBaltay]

Hi,
ther is an interim 5032 firmware to and from which the XCS firmware upgrade can be done fully online with no downtime

[Uwe Zessin]

True, but it is not available to non-HP personal and, as far as I can tell, you cannot do a staggered online disk drive firmware upgrade in those old versions.
On all upgrades I have watched, the controller firmware was upgraded together with the accompanying disk drive firmware bulk load (drivefw_off_nnn or so) which does require downtime.

[IBaltay]

Uwe I agree I have only comment that there is no need for the downtime if its not needed

[Patrick SF]

I got the same problem, but my XCS is v6. Remember to set the OS Type to custom and set the Custom Type as 00000004198009A8

Also, should need to PR registry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\hpeaadsm\Parameters\UsePersistentReservations to DWORD 1.


Configuring EVA host connections
Make sure the Windows LH Host mode is enabled for each node on the Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) through command view. Depending on what command view you have installed, if in the drop- down there is no "Microsoft Windows LH" then choose custom and type in the custom type field the following HEX number 00000004198009A8 (Figure 1). If the wrong connection type is configured, you cannot share the disks between the cluster nodes and the cluster check will fail with a non-SCSI-3 compliant message.

[mrdude]

I am so happy that i found your post about w2k8 cluster and EVA 4000. Thanks soo much for that 16 byte hex string for the custom operating system.