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Re: BL490C G6 with MSA2324SA high availability problems

 
JonathanT
Frequent Advisor

BL490C G6 with MSA2324SA high availability problems

I'm having trouble while testing my high availability configuration. Let me first lay out the hardware:

C7000 enclosure
BL490C G6 Blade w/ P700 Mez Card
SAS 3GB Switches Bays 5 + 6
MSA2324SA G2
Windows Server 2008 SP 2

I followed proper cabling guidelines:
Switch in Bay 5 has Port 1 connected to Storage Processor A1 and Port 2 connected to Storage Processor B1

Switch in Bay 6 has Port 1 connected to Storage Processor A2 and Port 2 connected to Storage Processor B2

I created the vdisks and carved out a couple of volumes. I added hosts for each port on the MSA using the device IDs obtained from the port mapping. For each volume that I map up to the server it appears as 4 logical volumes when the controller shows up during boot. I made sure when I mapped up the volumes to the host within the MSA that I matched the LUN number between each host (i.e. LUN 1 presented to SDS1_Bay1_Port1 and the same volume presented to SDS1_Bay1_Port2).

Then from within windows I followed the MPIO instructions to properly mpclaim the drives. The machine rebooted properly and when I reboot I see the HP MSA2324SA Multi-path Disk Devices under the Device Manager.

I then create a partition on the disk (D:) and fired up io-meter against it to generate some constant traffic.

I'm running into two failover problems though. If I shut down interconnect 5 then the disks disappear from windows (iometer obviously goes nuts with errors) and I'm hosed. The disks will not reappear until I start interconnect 5 back up.

The second failover scenario that I can't get working is doing a shutdown on controller A in the MSA (it's the primary owner of the volume). Controller B takes over ownership of the volume, but Windows completely loses the disk and it won't show back up until I restart controller A.

Does anyone have any idea what could be going wrong or any way to further validate the multipath configuration?
3 REPLIES 3
JonathanT
Frequent Advisor

Re: BL490C G6 with MSA2324SA high availability problems

Argh... just found this advisory:
http://bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&taskId=110&prodSeriesId=3971509&prodTypeId=12169&objectID=c01936554

HP's solution is to not install SP2... that's not going to work because the software that is going on these servers requires 2008 SP2! Does anyone have any idea how to find out what progress HP has made in resolving this issue?
JonathanT
Frequent Advisor

Re: BL490C G6 with MSA2324SA high availability problems

OK, here is the solution... Don't run SP2 or R2. We loaded up regular old 2008, patched it up, and the failover worked seamlessly under high io-meter load as you would expect. I sure wish they would point out this fact a little more prominently until it's fixed though.
JonathanT
Frequent Advisor

Re: BL490C G6 with MSA2324SA high availability problems

See post above.