MSA1000 Controller Replacement

[aubman]

 We are having problems with our MSA1000 controller redundancy, which HP support thinks is due to a bad controller (controller A).  We are planning on replacing the controller this weekend and wanted to see if anyone had some advice or insight to give.

We are currently on firmware version 7.00 (active/active).  Our MSA1000 has two controllers with two MSA30's attached. 

From my understanding the controller replacement is hot swappable and should not affect production.  If there is a firmware mismatch the controller with the oldest firmware will sync with the other controller.  The SAN configuration is locate on the disk drives so we should not lose our configuration during this process.

Is the controller replacement really that easy?  Are there any best practices I should be aware of? 

My biggest concern is losing our SAN configuration and having to restore 6TB worth of data.

Thanks,

John

[Johan Guldmyr]

You are not running the newest firmware.
I believe 7.20 is the latest.
What if the new controller has a newer firmware? Why not upgrade firmware before to be in more control?

May I ask what problem you are seeing?

http://h20464.www2.hp.com/index.html
storage -> MSA -> MSA1000
In this place there is a remove/replace video instruction for the controller. Worth checking out.

Wouldn't the safest be to do the replacement offline with both MSA1000 and MSA30 extra enclosures turned off? I mean if you are having some kind of issue with the redundancy/communication between the controllers.

[Thomas Martin]

Hello,

the controller replacement is very easy, leave MSA1000 up and running, pull controller A, replace controller A. If there is a firmware mismatch, controller B will synch his FW to controller A because he is the master controller at this moment. Please don't change the controller offline.  Have a good backup, try to shut down all connected systems if possible or shutdown applications. Check twice your redundancy is set for all systems. After all systems are fine after replacement look  for FW 7.20. If your system has no errors with FW7.0 stay at this version. MSA1000 was retired 5 years ago, it's time to look forward.

Thomas

[aubman]

Thomas,

Thank you for your reply.  I have two more questions: 

The new controller (A) is suppose to have the new FW version 7.20, since it will have the newest FW version controller B will sync with it right? 

Do I need to worry about swapping out the cache module if I shut down all the systems and wait 10 minutes for the cache to write to disk?

Thanks again,

John

[Thomas Martin]

Hello John,

if the new controller cames with FW 7.20 and Controller B is up and running. Controller B downgrade Controller A to FW 7.20.

You dont need to worry about swapping the cache module. You lost read cache but write cache is mirrored to Controller B. If you shut down your servers then you can wait 5 minutes to change Controller A. FW sync takes place at the moment Controller B recognized the FW of the starting Controller A. You can see the messages at the display. Controller A reboots after FW sync. After reboot all should be fine.

Thomas

[Johan Guldmyr]

"if the new controller cames with FW 7.20 and Controller B is up and running. Controller B downgrade Controller A to FW 7.20."

You mean downgrade Controller A to FW 7.00 (or whatever is on controller B) - right?

[Thomas Martin]

Sorry,

controller A will be downgraded to FW7.00 from FW 7.20 if the running Controller B has FW 7.00.

Mistyped the FW Version.