Connecting W2K3 with QLogic FC1242SR to EVA 5000 - what to do?

[pinkerton]

Hi,

I'm about to connect a system running Windows Server 2003 (x86) with a HP FC1242SR FCA to a fabric with one HP EVA 5000 (XCS 4.100).

According to SPOCK, this is supported using the FCA Bios 2.12 with Boot Image 1.81af and Storport driver version 9.1.8.19.

Do you recommend to use these (old) versions or should I just use the most recent firmware and Storport driver?

Then, from what I know I have to perform the following steps on the Windows Server:

1. Install the corresponding Storport drivers for the FCA card

2. Install HP MPIO Full Featured DSM Driver for EVA 5000

3. Insatall HP MPIO DSM Manager

Is there anything else I need to be aware of, like i.e. the installation of certain hotfixes before installing the Storport driver? I'm not sure, but I think I have read something like this in the past.

Any other suggestions are welcome as well.

Thanks
Michael

[Uwe Zessin · Accepted solution]

If that is the last official version, then I'd stick with it unless any problem shows up.

You should install the latest Windows Storport hotfix before installing the FC adapter driver and make sure you use a recent ProLiant Support Pack, because a very old SmartArray driver can also cause problems when a Storport hotfix is installed.
The remaining steps look fine to me.

[Jan Soska]

Hello Michael,
You are absolutelly right,
storport driver 9.1.8.19 and newer are ok. Just keep firmware at lease on supported level (btw, there is newer 2.15 release).
I am not sure if vcs 4.1 is latest eva5000 firmware - maybe check as well.
Then do all steps as you wrote.

Should work as intended...

Jan

[pinkerton]

Thanks, I will use the most recent versions of the drivers and firmware then.

Gonna try this now!

[pinkerton]

Everything worked just fine. Here's what I did:

1. Installed Windows Server 2003 Storport Hotfix KB932755 and KB939315.

2. Installed most recent Pro Liant Support Pack. Storport drivers for the FCA are only installed when KB932755 is present on the system.

3. Updated Storport drivers via device manager to the most recent version from the HP website.

4. Installed QLogic SANsurfer and updated the FCA firmware to the most recent version from the HP website.

5. Installed HP MPIO Full Featured DSM Driver for EVA 5000

6. Installed HP MPIO DSM Manager

After presenting the Vdisk to the system and doing a rescan in the storage snap-in, Windows recognized the drive and the EVA and LUN showed up in DSM Manager.

Multipathing (4 paths) works fine. I.e. when unplugging a fibre cable, the MPIO driver switches the path as needed and I can still access the drive.

Many thanks for your help!

[Jan Soska]

Hello Michael,

1 possible enhancement:
Check in MPIO manager if you have option Enable ALUA available, if yes, enable it, it helps to find the shortest path to disks.
(but not sure if this works only under win2008 and newer EVAs)

Jan

[Uwe Zessin]

An EVA3000/5000 with VCS V4.100 is asymmetric active/active, too. As they have one mirror port, not two like the EVA[468][01]00 it is _really_ a good idea to use ALB.

[pinkerton]

Thanks for the hint.

I assume this is the option "Enable/Disable ALB" when right clicking the EVA in DSM Manager. Currently this is set to "N" on all 4 paths, so it seems disabled.

Can I turn this on without any risk? I'm asking because there are many other systems attached to the EVA as well from which the ones I just checked don't have this enabled either.

[Uwe Zessin]

No problem. It tells the MPIO on _this_ host to check for 'optimized'/'non-optimized' paths and only use the optimized ones for data I/O.

[pinkerton]

Thanks. However, it doesn't seem to work - after selecting enable it says "Failed to set the adaptive loadbalance policy for one or more devices".