HPUX 11.23 itanium & ServiceGuard A11.18 & iscsi lock disks

[berlui]

Hi,

Is it possible manage a two nodes service guard cluster (A.11.18) with iscsi luns only for lock disks. The application data will be shared between the two nodes via NFS volumes. Infact, on the exisiting cluster based with Fiber Channel connection we want move to an only LAN conncetion.

Thank you in advance

Luigi Berengan

[Mike_Chisholm]

Hi Luigi,

Serviceguard 11.18 on 11iv2 is no longer supported. The minimum supported version of SG for 11iv2 is 11.19. See this doc for more info - http://h20565.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?sp4ts.oid=4162060&docLocale=en_US&docId=emr_na-c04760778

The Serviceguard 11.20 manual states on page 50 that using iSCSI for lock lun or lock disk is not supported. - http://h20565.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?sp4ts.oid=4162060&docLocale=en_US&docId=emr_na-c05323984

Per the storage support document, iSCSI support was introduced for Serviceguard 11.20 with patch PHSS_42558. I do not think any earlier versions of Serviceguard on HP-UX support iSCSI at all, even for shared storage. Current storage doc - http://h20565.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?sp4ts.oid=4162060&docLocale=en_US&docId=emr_na-c02530256

You could use a quorum server instead of a lock disk for cluster lock. Quorum server is free software and there are versions that run on both HP-UX and linux. Quorum server 4.00 release notes - http://h20565.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?sp4ts.oid=4162060&docLocale=en_US&docId=emr_na-c05323993

Hope this helps.

Mike

[Patrick Wallek]

FYI --- iSCSI is supported for shared storage, or at least it is working.  I've got a 3 node SG cluster running HP-UX 11.31 with SG A.11.20.00.01 and iSCSI running over 10Gb NICs.

It works fine and performance is pretty good, at least according to my customer.

I've got a patch that superseded PHSS_42558, but when I tried to set up an iSCSI LUN as a lock disk, it errored on me.  

[Mike_Chisholm]

Yes, iSCSI is supported for shared storage for Serviceguard 11.20 with PHSS_42558 or later but for the original poster's question about Serviceguard 11.18 on 11iv2, I do not think it will work at all. It is certainly not supported for that configuration. And your experience seems to confirm lock disk will not work even with the current version.

So given all that, my advice would be to upgrade Serviceguard to 11.20 (this version will run on 11iv2) and maybe iSCSI will work for shared storage, and use a quorum server for cluster lock. I'm not sure if there is something in HP-UX itself that needs 11iv3 for iSCSI underneath Serviceguard.

[berlui]

Thank you very very much to all.

The idea to move to "Quorum Server" is great.

About the migration procedure: after have installed and configured an external redHat VM with "Quorum Server" software is hard move the SG configuration from lock disk to quorum server?

Still thank you for your help.

Luigi

[berlui]

Hi,

could you also tell me where i can download the following Quorum Server software please ?

----------->  qs-A.04.00.01-0.rhel6.x86_64.rpm

Thank you in advance

Luigi

[Patrick Wallek]

Latest quorum server bits can be downloaded from:

https://h20392.www2.hpe.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=B8467BA

[berlui]

HI,

mmmmmh very strange.......

Infact, the Release Notes of last October (2016) speak also about a Quorum Server version also for RedHat 6 x86_64 via rpm installation file:

http://h20565.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?sp4ts.oid=4162060&docLocale=en_US&docId=emr_na-c05323993

Instead, in your link there isn't this possibility.

Why?

Thank you very much again.

Luigi

[Mike_Chisholm]

The RHEL 6 A.04.00.01 Quorum Server software is a rpm. It is just for some reason they have bundled the actual rpm into a tar ball with a .sig file, a Readme, and a key file. Probably has something to do with code signing and needing to ship a new key if I had to guess. But the actual Quorum Server software itself is a rpm installable file.