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Re: store virtual 4330 questions

 
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phillbl1
Frequent Advisor

store virtual 4330 questions

hi,

 

we have just purchased a 4330 starter pack.  at present we have 4 p4300 units configured in a cluster.  this is presented to esx 5.1 using iscsi

 

is it possible to add the new storage to the p4300 cluster thats running?

 

also, the new 4330 comes with 4 nic ports, all the others have 2.  we are going to just bond 2 of the nics on the nw system as the only benefit i see is that we will be allowed up to 3 port failures.  if i use a bond with 4 nics would i actually see any benefit in terms of iscsi performace??  all other LHS storage is 2 nics bonded running on a gigabit network.

 

Thanks

 

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Emilo
Trusted Contributor
Solution

Re: store virtual 4330 questions

is it possible to add the new storage to the p4300 cluster thats running?

Yes you can add the new systems to the existing cluster, just remember that the new systems will dumb down to the same storage capacity and performance as the existing nodes. In addition you will be stuck at the highest level that the existing nodes can be upgraded (saniq) to the existing nodes, in other words the new ones will mimic the old ones.

If that is not a concern then you will pickup scaliblity  with adding the additional spindles.

 

You can put them in a different cluster which will make them mimic each other but you will still be stuck with management group being at saniq xx.x of the old nodes. You can run them in a mixed enviroment which is supported and acceptable to HP. The cluster will have one group of nodes at one version , the management group will be stuck at the old p43000 saniq version.

 

  if i use a bond with 4 nics would i actually see any benefit in terms of iscsi performace??  

4 NIC bond is not supported at this time.

you can setup one as a management port.

 

phillbl1
Frequent Advisor

Re: store virtual 4330 questions

thanks for the information. like the eva model, can the nodes be updated while servers are swiched on and running?  just make sure that its done when IOPS are low.

 

thanks

 

Emilo
Trusted Contributor

Re: store virtual 4330 questions

it depends on the Network RAID level of your volumes.

If ther are replicated then yes you can do it live.

 

phillbl1
Frequent Advisor

Re: store virtual 4330 questions

we have three volumes

2 are on data protection level network raid-10 2-way mirror

1 is on data protection level network raid-5 single parity

 

so i am 99% certain this should be ok?

 

 

 

Dirk Trilsbeek
Valued Contributor

Re: store virtual 4330 questions

a few things to check to make sure you don't experience downtimes during node updates:

 

  • make sure you have a failover manager that is up and running.
  • In the CMC there is also a tab that shows which volumes would be inaccessible if you restarted that node (select a node in the cluster and open tab "Availability"). There should be no volume listed.
  • Your servers should always connect to the cluster VIP, not to one of the individual nodes.

 

 

Emilo
Trusted Contributor

Re: store virtual 4330 questions

Yes with Network Raid 10 and Network Raid 5 you should be fine.

I think they recently put in a feature that will warn you that a volume is not fully replicated and will loose connectivity if you try to do the upgrade.

good luck

oikjn
Honored Contributor

Re: store virtual 4330 questions

what dirk said.

 

As long CMC isn't telling you a LUN availability is dependent on a specific node, you will not have a problem with updating live as long as you have your target set on the VIP and CMC isn't warning you that you have an incorrect number of managers running.

phillbl1
Frequent Advisor

Re: store virtual 4330 questions

thanks for all the prelies.  great information.  one other thing that really bugs me with LHS is the alerts.  ever since i started using these since version 9 i can never seem to clear old alerts from the CMC.

 

is this possible

 

oikjn
Honored Contributor

Re: store virtual 4330 questions

can you show in a screen shot?  As far as I know, the alerts automatically clear once the issue is resolved and the only alerts to show are ones where there is actually a current problem.