going to multibus mode.. MA8000's ?..redundant fabric add.

[George Quist]

Hello all..

looking for some advice here.. both of our MA8000 arrays are currently running in HSG80 Transparent Failover mode. All the servers in the SAN have single HBA cards. We will be introducng a 2Gb redundant fabric soon ( SAN Switch 2/32 pair. ) The fabric in place now is all 1Gb ( Brocade 2800 pair )..

Questions:
1. as pre work . can the MA8000 arrays be put into multibus failover mode BEFORE the 2nd HBA cards and the 2Gb redundant fabric is introduced ?

2. About Secure Path.. "some" servers in the SAN will get Secure path software.. Can single HBA machines co exist in the SAN with dual HBA machines and access the multibus failover mode MA8000's ?

3. Suggested order of steps ?

any help appreciated..

later,
George Quist

[Mitch Brown_1 · Accepted solution]

1. Yes, they can. However...this process is not easy no matter how you look at it. It also depends on the host type (windows?) as to the specific procedure. In general, you need to have SecurePath on the machines first, but this can cause headaches on some oses.

2. Yes, if you do it right. See step 3.

3. This will require downtime, and is safest if you take all the servers down for the procedure. Follow procedure below:

a) re-zone the fabric so that each host has only ONE path to its HBA.
b) uninstall the platform kit on the host
c) install the latest platform kit on the host (I always use the EVA platform kit as it is updated more often and also supports HSG).
d) reboot servers
e) after all hosts are done this way, switch the controller to multibus mode, fix your connection offsets, etc.
f) Once switched to multibus mode, install SecurePath on hosts where you want it.
g) for those hosts with securePath, edit zoning to see all paths to the HSG.
h) when you get around to it, introduce the second fabric/HBAs and you are pretty much all set. As long as you make sure you enable only one path from each lun to each server without securepath, you will be OK (as long as you don't have a component failure).

Hope this helps...