Building a EVA5000 form loose parts

[JohanChristensson]

Hi.

We have bought some use EVA5000 parts over eBay and we are woundering if we are cheating our self. The goal is to first learn a about SAN/EVA networks, and later on implement it into our production network.

We have bought the following parts:
2x HSV110 controllers
3x disk enclosures with 20 146GB 10k FC disks
2x Loop back switches
1x 2/8 SAN Switch
2x Emulex "HP-branded" 64-bits HBA (don't have the exact modelnummber right now)
A loot of 2Gbit GBIC and a bunch of fiber patch cables.

Also, we have two ML530G2.

Now, is there anything essential that we are missing here to get this to even run? Like licenses or so?

We have found a number of manuals describing how to configure the hardware, but we are a bit unsure about the software part and configuration of the HSV110 units and the EVA system. Any pointers?

We have got hold of some educational material from a HP contact of our and we planning to take a course at HP later on, we just want to test some our self first and get a bit familiar with the system first.

Any help and pointers are welcome.

Best regards,
Johan Christensson

[Rob Leadbeater]

Hi Johan,

On the hardware side of things, you don't say whether you have the parts to make the EAB bus. This is made up of a series of junction boxes and RJ-45Z leads, that link the disk enclosures and the controllers - the position of each enclosure on the bus determines its ID.

I've had to rebuild an EVA5000 recently and getting hold of some of these parts is quite difficult...

Cheers,

Rob

[Rob Leadbeater]

From the licensing side of things, then yes you do need an LTU (License To Use) the EVA, however on early versions these licenses are not enforced.

The LTU is part of the Command View EVA (CV EVA) software which you will need to get installed on a Windows server to manage the EVA. EVAs were originally shipped with SMAs (Storage Management Appliances) which did this task. I'm guessing you don't have one of these, so you will need to build a Storage Management Server running Windows 2003 and Command View EVA.

The Quickspecs for the latest version (v7.0) are here:

http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/12239_div/12239_div.html

which detail all the required part numbers for the LTUs.

However, this is where it good get tricky... Each HSV110 controller runs firmware called VCS. In order to manage the EVA correctly you need to match the version of Command View EVA to VCS. If you have an old version of VCS on the HSVs, then you will need to get hold of an old version of CV EVA to manage it, and upgrade VCS.

As you got the stuff of eBay, your VCS version could be really old. Although HP issued advisories saying that it was mandatory to upgrade to the latest versions, many organisations didn't. I've come across EVAs recently which were running VCS 2.004.

My thread here:
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1113007

could come in useful when upgrading.

Cheers,

Rob

[Mark...]

Hi,
If you are just going to use the EVA to "play" with it then I would not go to cmd vw 7 as there are licence implications.

You do not need licences for the basic functionality of the EVA, that is to create Vraid0/5/1.
However, if you wish to use snapshots/snapclones then you will require a Business Copy [BC] licence. You can also do containers with this but you would then require VCS 4.007 -VCS3.xxx will not do this function.
No point going for a Continuous Access [CA]Licence as you need 2 EVA's.
HP Web site:
https://webware.hp.com/welcome.asp

On the h/w side you have stated that you have an EVA5000 and "2x loop back switches".
Unfortunately to correctly configure this system in a "switched" configuration you will need 4. If you wish to configure as "unswitched" [no backend loop switches]then you do not need any!
I would suggest that you do not do half of each as it is not supported - but if it's a play system then maybe try it, see what happens and let the forum know!!
You could just cable one loop pair as switched as you only have 3 shelves and leave the other loop alone - this would solve that problem.
HP web site:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DocumentIndex.jsp?contentType=SupportManual&locale=en_US&docIndexId=179911&taskId=101&prodTypeId=12169&prodSeriesId=406734


If you did not get a version of command view in with all the stuff you got off ebay then you will not be able to do anything with all your bits and pieces even if you cable it all together properly! No management server -this means command view - no idea what the EVA is doing, you will not be able to configure, manage, etc, etc. This you will have to pay for off HP. You can get a patch for cmd vw V6 off the web via HP but you must have a full source version first. This is not available for free. Maybe your HP source can supply you with one ???
HP web site:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/ProductList.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&taskId=135&prodClassId=-1&prodTypeId=18964&prodSeriesId=471497


Once you have found out your VCS code version you will then need the correct Multipath I/O [MPIO] for the version of VCS code you are using.
VCS V3.xxx basic MPIO
VCS V4.xxx full function MPIO & DSM
HP web site:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodNameId=421494&prodTypeId=18964&prodSeriesId=421492&swLang=8&taskId=135&swEnvOID=1005

You also say that you are thinking of taking an EVA training course "later" - maybe you should take it sooner !?!?!
Authorized HP training location "near" [your location says Sweden] you:
http://www.hostcomputers.co.uk/

Have fun with your new toy!

Mark...

[Rob Leadbeater]

Hi,

Mark said: "You do not need licences for the basic functionality of the EVA".

I don't believe that's true. Just because versions of Command View EVA prior to 7.0 don't enforce the license, it doesn't mean that you don't need it.

If I remember correctly, the early versions of CV (pre v3?) did require you to enter the license keys. This requirement was dropped in versions 3 thru 6, and reinstated in v7.

Although you won't find it by searching for downloads from http://www.hp.com/go/support , Command View EVA v3.3.3 is available here:

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softlib/software4/COL10386/co-29805-1/CV_EVA_V333_ISO.zip

If you've got the patience to trawl through ftp.hp.com you may find other versions...

Cheers,

Rob

[JohanChristensson]

Thanks for your anwsers.

Rob: You are correct in that we don't have the parts for the EAB connections. These have been difficult to get hold of. We where hoping that it would be possible to get som functionality anyway. The controllers should be abel to see the discs anyway, or?

I will power up the HSV units toworrow and see what versions we have in them.

/Johan Ch

[JohanChristensson]

One more thing. As I was reading the hardware manual and came to the part where they initializes the controllers, you are suppose to enter a WWN number and checksum that is found on the rack. Now, we don't have these numbers, but as I understand it this is just an identification number for the HSV unit on the network, some what like an IP-address.

So is there a way to calculate your own WWN number or is this some kind of licensing?

/Johan Ch

[Rob Leadbeater]

Hi Johan,

Without the EAB all the devices will get ID 0 (I think). This won't stop the controllers seeing the disks, but I don't think CV EVA will be able to determine where things are...

With regard to the WWN of the controllers, I've been there myself. In the end I had to 'borrow' the WWN from another EVA. There isn't a way that I'm aware of to generate a new one...

I never tried it, but I did find that some disk enclosures have a WWN and checksum label on them. You could try that...

Hope this helps,

Regards,

Rob

[Mark...]

Hi,
Correct - no EAB/problems with EAB then a shelf will normally default to id 0. The shelves will go into "unmappable hardware" along with all the associated disks. It will not stop the EVA functioning as such.

As for no WWID/checksum - oopps! You will not be able to use a shelf wwid as Rob suggested as there is no checksum for a shelf. Being as you stated that you purchased the EVA bits to play with you obviously don't have another EVA wwid/checksum to copy. HP would probably not be happy about this either!

Until you sort out the WWID/checksum to enter on the EVA OCP then you will not be able to do anything with it. I suspect the company that you got the EVA from may have transfered there licences or still have the original rack that it was housed in. You could try and contact them to see if they still have it ?? Failing that you may have to contact HP [see links above]...

Mark...

[Mark...]

Hi,
Well it would appear I should apologise to Rob, well 50% anyway! :-)

There are wwid/checksum's on some shelves. I have just had a look around my works EVA5k's & 8k's and it would appear that the 5k's have them but the 8k's do not. Obviously I have not pulled out every shelf, just a quick look at several of them so can not guarantee this 100%.

Well Johan, I guess you could try on of those, assuming that you have at least one shelf with a sticker on, but who knows what will happen!?

Mark...

[JohanChristensson]

Thought I'll give you some update on our progres.

We unpacked everything and all seems fine. The only obviouse thing missing is that there ain't any battery pack in one of the HSV units.

We powered everyting up and connected the encluosures one after directly to one of the servers to see that every disc at least can be found by the operatingsystem and seems to be functional.

The we came to the HSV units and esspecialy the WWN part. I googled for a while trying to find someone that hade run into the same problem, but nothing came up. I managed to find a set of WWN numbers that we punched into one of the HSV units and managed to find a corresponding Checksum using the "trial & error" method. Increasing one diget at the time.

So, now I guess that the only obstical is to get hold of a version of Command View EVA.

Will report back with more progress later on.

/Johan Christensson

[JohanChristensson]

Forgot a question about Command View Eva.

Is this something that you buy seperate from the EVA system, since its not downloadable from the HP web? Who whould have any use for the CV EVa without a EVA system?

/Johan Christensson

[JohanChristensson]

Ok, now that I have read into this a bit more, we realize that we missunderstod the part about how the system is managed/configured. Althoug we have got hold of all the parts, the setup is more or less useless without CV Eva.

So, before we start chasing a Management Appliance, I have one question:

Is there any thing else that can be used to manage the EVA5000? Any other software form some other manufacturer or is HP the only way here?

Best regards,
Johan Christensson

[Rob Leadbeater]

Hi Johan,

No. You have to use Command View EVA.

As I mentioned earlier, some versions of CV are available on ftp.hp.com, however they are not publically indexed, so finding them is tricky...

If you do get hold of a second user SMA, make sure it comes with the software or Recovery CD.

Cheers,

Rob

[JohanChristensson]

Well, now we are getting somewhere.

After searching through HP ftp site, I found a installation package containing Command View EVA v6.0. After installation of this, we connected the SAN parts together, booted the HSV controllers, entered the WWN name, and the controllers seemd to connect to each other and startad up as expected.

We started the CV EVA and found the EVA system, intialized the system, and created a storage group spanning 14 discs.

After the we created a new Host, and assigned the WWN of the server (the same machine as we run CV EVA on). And last we created a 20GB vdisc in a vraid1 configuration, and presented it to the configured host.

Everything seems to work fine up untill this point. The problem we are having right now is that we can't seem to be abel to see the presented disc on the host server. We have followed the instructions in the "Connectivity Guide for Windows", and still we can't see the disc in the server.

We have a Emulex LP9002DC controller in the server, and the only units we see in the HBAAnywhere is the four ports on the HSV controllers, and under them there is a LUN0 unit.

Any tips on this?

Bets regards,
Johan Christensson

[JohanChristensson]

Ok. Now we are getting somewhere.

The reason that we chouldent see the presented discs in our second testmachine, was because of a defektiv GBIC, after that we exchanged to GBIC we created a static mapping for the presented disc in our system.

When we look in the Disc manager of our WIndows 2003 SP1 server, we see the disc, it is the correct size (30GB), but it is marked as "Unreachable", and we cannot do anything with it.

Is there any requirements that have to be installed in the server to be abel to use the discs?

/Johan Christensson