about MSA1500 configuration

[Lionel Liu]

Hello

we are thinking to build two nodes cluster system with two FC switches and two MSA1500 disk storage. and make it muiltipath.

if we configure disk A on one of the MSA1500 and configure disk B on another MSA1500. Can both nodes access the two disks at same time?

where I can find documentation for two MSA1500 connection and make it muiltipath?

Thanks in advance
Lionel

[Uwe Zessin]

Yes, both nodes will be able to access both disks (after all, it is just block access), but:

- if the operating system or an add-on component does not provide a shared-filesystem, you will see data corruption!!
- if this is a Microsoft Cluster, only one node has read/write access to a logical disk at a time - the other node is locked-out by the cluster software. (Because NTFS is not a shared filesystem)

Multipath has nothing to do with using two storage arrays. It just means that a server has multiple paths to a storage ressource (virtual/logical disk) _within_ one storage array. E.g. when you have a MSA1500 with two controllers and a server with two Fibre Channel ports, this will be a multipath configuration.

It sounds like you want to 'duplicate' your data on both MSA1500. The MSAs do not have any means to help you accomplish this task. You do need additional software on the servers.

[Lionel Liu]

Thanks for your reply,

we are thinking to install Linux and Oracle RAC on nodes. both Linux and Oracle have cluster ware software. file system shouldn't be issue.

Yes, we are thinking to have two controllers in each MSA1500 to build muiltpath.

The reason we are trying to use two MSA1500 is about disk IO bandwidth. we are trying to distribute some IO to the second MSA1500.
not for duplicate.

Thanks again
Lionel