SSP & Zoning of Port can be disable?

[vincent2982]

Hi All

If i were to disable MSA 1000 SSP & Port zoning in a current live enviroment to share out the LUN, will my data in the LUN lost? Pls help urgently

[Uwe Zessin]

What operating system?

Most likely, yes, because sharing of LUNs requires an operating system / OS extention that knows how to do it (basic Linux or Windows, for example, does not) and the whole environment must be set up properly.

Why is this urgent, by the way? Moving to a shared environment is a heavy change that MUST be planned properly!
It can not be answered by a simple YES/NO.

[vincent2982]

Hi

1: It's a ESX 2.5.3 Server
2: I wan to unhide the LUN & so other ESX can share the same LUN. So i decided to disable SSP & delete all the zoning on the switch Port.

It's urgent cos we need the space as soon as possiable

[Uwe Zessin]

OK. Multiple VMware ESX server can safely share disks, but the storage array should not be connected during installs (it is too easy to wipe out a disk). Make sure that the operating system Profile is set correctly and the the MRU failover policy is choosen.

[vincent2982]

Hi Tx.

So I can just disable the SSP & delete all the zoning on the switch? I will on connect up the fiber cable when the ESX is install. All the new ESX will b able to see the LUN right?

[Uwe Zessin]

Yes, although I would keep SSP and zoning in case you easily want to expand the configuration with a different operating system.

I don't know much about your environment, but it is very important that a single controller is not accessed by more than one Fibre Channel adapter port from a single host and a single port does not have access to both MSA controllers.

Before you put the second server into production, please make sure that the Connections are properly set up.

[vincent2982]

Tx. The Storage is just purely for ESX.

[Mark Wibaux]

Why disable everything?
Either modify the existing Zone config to include the additional WWNN for the extra server (assuming you are using soft zoning) OR additional ports (using hard zoning).
Then just go into SSP and present the LUNs you need to to the WWPN for the additional server.

This way you can easily remove the changes if you need to rather than having to recreate configs from scratch.

[vincent2982]

Cos, they dun have a Windows server with ACU to connect to the SAN to manage it. So they wan to disable the SSP & Zoning to allow all ESX to access the SAN once & for all. When new ESX is setup, just connect the fiber cable to the storage port will do.