Configuring MSA1000 (active/active) with MPIO or secure path ?

[Abd_3]

I have an MSA san As follows:

- one MSA1500 enclosure.
- Two MSA1000 controllers.
- Two fiber switches.
- four servers with one HBA card in each server.

What is the most suitable way to connect these servers to the SAN and achieving the full redundancy and the full avilability.

[Stephen Kebbell]

Hi,

for full redundancy and availability you need to have 2 HBAs in each server.
Then connect one HBA from each server and one MSA controller to one switch, and the other controller and HBAs to the other switch. Do not interconnect the switches.
Install multipathing software on each server. It depends on your OS - if you have Windows you need the MPIO DSM for the array (MSA1500 active/active). SecurePath will not work with active/active firmware on MSAs.

Regards,
Stephen

[Abd_3]

As I said I have one HBA and I cannot add another HBA now because I do not have Free slots on the servers, in the future i'll have dual ports HBA cards.
now i need the best way that i can use to connect the servers to the SAN untill i have the dual port HBA?

[Ingmar Carlson]

With one HBA in each server there is no way to achive full redundancy.

Connect each MSA1000 controller to a switch an then connect 2 Servers to each switch.

In my opionion that is the highest redundancy you can achive.

HBA down -> 1 server down
Switch down -> 2 servers down
MSA1000 controller down -> 2 servers down.

[Abd_3]

for now I have one HBA on each server, now if i connected the four servers to one switch, and this switch is connected the Two MSA1000 controllers and i made the two controllers in Active/Active mode. now if one controller failed the other will work, and if one switch failed will be replaced physically by the other swtich which is standby by now. and if one HBA failed i will never see the data untill i replace it.

is this right ????

and if this is right what sotware needed to make the controllers work in active/active mode. and how i can configure the two controllers.

[Stephen Kebbell]

Hi,

that configuration is not supported! You cannot have both MSA controllers visible to the same HBA. I don't think it will work. I think Ingmar's suggestion would be the best interim solution.

You don't really configure the controllers, apart from setting up the disk arrays and Selective Storage Presentation. Active/Active or Active/Passive depends on the firmware version on the MSA1500.
Version 5.xx = Active/Passive
Version 7.xx = Active/Active

Regards,
Stephen

[junhua song]

My question is where to download the ver7.0 firmware? I get a URL from V6.86's release notes like:MSA1000: http://www.hp.com/go/msa1000
MSA1500: http://www.hp.com/go/msa1500cs
,but the page did not have a link to download the new version of firmware.
pls give a link if who had download it successfully!

[Víctor Cespón]

MSA1000 firmware has been unified with the MSA1500 firmware. You can download 7.00 firmware here:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=12169&prodSeriesId=415598&prodNameId=427161&swEnvOID=1005&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=co-40593-2

If you check the readme, you'll see that it talks about both MSAs.