Redundant CR3500

[Ayman Altounji]

Has anyone ever actually test the redundancy of a CR3500? I'm installing Win2K Adv. Server w/clustering. I'm trying to get the redundant controller working. On the other clusters we have in the Data Center, they use RA4100s, and we can just yank out fibre cables, and Secure Path assures that the fibre failover to the other controller works. We're trying to make it so that we can lose a controller and the CR3500 that is redundant will pickup automatically and keep the machine up (ain't that the entire point of a cluster?!). This isn't happening. We unplug one CR3500, and the system simply chokes, as if we just pulled out the only, non-redundant controller. We've tried following all the instructions we've found with the system, to no avail. We've also changed the scsi path configurations in the configuration utility so that the controllers are in Active/Passive (High Availability) Modes. This make no difference. Has anyone actually tested this? Does this even work? Did Compaq even test this before they sent the thing off the production line?

[Ayman Altounji]

It does work, but not the way you would expect. These controllers and how they work are a five year step back, sorry Jeff. The redundant controller will kick in only on a fault. You can cause a controller to fail by inserting a paper clip in the small hole on the front of the controller. There is a button behind the hole. The smart back plane gets the error and then channels the request to the other controller. Pulling the controller on this setup does not work like the rest of Compaqs systems that we are used to. One other gotcha is be sure the ROMPAQ/level is exact on both controllers. If the releases does not match, it will not work.