HP EVA 5000+IBM AIX 5.3

[SAN_8]

In our Bank We are Using HP EVA 5000 with VCS version 3.028. Recently we installed one IBM AIX system for our banking application and want to prsent drive from EVA. I checked and found that we need antemeta s/w for AIX 5.3 but somebody told me there is some facility called like single HBA concept. Am not sure about this can anybody advice me. if it is correct from where i can get it.
we are using AIX 5.3 with single FC Card

[Stiwi Wondrusch]

Multi pathing:
The virtual drives on the EVA can be accessed by more then one way (eg via two FC HBAs).
You need a multipathing software to handle this. This gives you the security you except from a SAN.
This software for AIX is from antemeta and costs.

single HBA concept:
This is not really a concept.
You just have one HBA. Then your system has only one way to your virtual drives.
So you dont need any multipathing software. But you loose a lot of security.

AIX with single HBA:
You need AIX5.3-03 (Maintenance Level 3). Just configure the SAN then connect and run cfgmgr on AIX.

rgds Stiwi

[SAN_8]

Appreciate your answer but still I have some doubt we are using 4 san swiches. first switch and 3rd one is cascaded same way 2nd and fourth. Normally when i present the disk in windows or linux it is showing like four disk so we are using secure path in windows. My doubt is when i will present disk in AIX using one HBA will it show like two disk or AIX will manage that, pls clear my doubt.thanks

[Stiwi Wondrusch]

How many connectors does your FC card have? To which switches (1,2,3,4) your server is connected?

[SAN_8]

My server got only one connection and it is connected to the first set of switch( 1 & 3 are cascaded, It is listing like one switch.)

[Stiwi Wondrusch]

This should work.

[SAN_8]

I will try and inform you the result through this thread ,,,thanks a lot

[Tom O'Toole]

Can you post what type of FC HBA are you using?

[SAN_8]

The HBA Came with IBM P series Server. I connected the cable but now in the SAN swich it is showing L-Port and not showing the WWN also. Can you pls advice

[Sheldon Smith]

Hi. At one point, you said "Normally when i present the disk in windows or linux it is showing like four disk so we are using secure path in windows.". I am making the assumption that the system has 2 HBAs: One connected to the fabric with the first and third switches, the other HBA connected to the fabric with the second and fourth switches. Am I right?
On that basis, to clarify, with just a single HBA connected, it is possible to have TWO paths; one through the fabric to the A controller, the other path through the same fabric to the B controller.

Single pathing means exactly that. Through whatever means, and in your case, that means zoning, only one path is made available from the EVA to the host. You wind up with NO high availability. In the event something happens to the path (work on the switch, EVA controller, fibre cable, other?) at the very least you would temporarily lose access to the virtual disks on the EVA. Whether data would be lost would depend on the duration (measured in seconds) of the outage.

Bottom line: If banking application is important, you do NOT want to run in a single-path / single HBA environment. Just as you need Secure Path for a Windows host, you want two HBAs and you would need antemeta for the AIX host.

[SAN_8]

Exactly right and I tried this it is showing two drive.

[Sheldon Smith]

And in response to your last post, it sounds like possibly a driver is missing, not patched up-to-date, or not responding correctly.

Minimum requirements: IBM AIX 5L (5.3) ML1 or greater.
IBM AIX 5L (5.3) ML1,TL04 or greater required with AntemetA Multipathing Software. SP03 recommended. APAR IY79862 required

If you are using AntemetA (AntemetA AMS 2.2.3.3 for AIX 5.3), the following HBAs are supported: FC5716, FC6239, and FC6228.
* VIO is supported on applicable servers.
* AIX 5.3 ML3 is required on LPAR and VIO 1.2.0.0 on the VIO server.
* Not supported in same server with Secure Path Multipathing Solution.
Connection Name (O/S Parameter): Custom with 00000000021118A8 for
AntemetA

If you are using Secure Path (Secure Path for AIX (2.0D) Service Pack SP3), the following HBAs are supported: FC1957 and FC1977. The following HBAs are also supported, but with restrictions (contact your HP representative): DS-SWIA1-PD and A7539A.
* Not supported with FC5716, FC6239, FC6228 adapters.
* Secure Path for AIX 2.0D SP3 is required for use in P5xx Servers
* Not supported in same server with AntemetA Multipathing Solution
Connection Name (O/S Parameter): â IBM AIXâ For Secure Path

[SAN_8]

When I download Host in EVA there is an option of O/S IBM AIX, is it is not applicable for AIX 5.3

[Bret Graham]

It would be a waste of money to purchase AntemetA and use just a single path. You would be paying for a multipath product and then configuring a single path. At least use both paths in the one fabric where you connect. This will give you some redundancy at the controller level (assuming correct cabling in the fabric) but not at the switch or adapter level)

Regarding the loop mode problem of the adapter, this is how you can fix this. Unfortunately it is not unusual to see this on the initial configuration of the IBM fibre adapters.

rmdev -Rl fcs0 (should be 0 with only 1 adapter)
chdev -l fcs0 -a init_link=pt2pt
chdev -l fscsi0 -a attach=switch
cfgmgr

This should fix the loop mode issue and allow the adapter to properly log into the fabric and be visible in Command View EVA for the host definition.

The 1957 and 1977 mentioned in another reply are not supported with Secure Path. Those are just additional IBM feature codes for the IBM 5716 (Emulex 10000) adapter. Secure Path only supports Cambex PC1000 and PC2000 (Qlogic) adapters.

If using AntemetA, it would be highly recommended to be at AIX 5.3 Maintenance Level 3 if not higher like Technology Level 4 or the new 5.

Bret

[SAN_8]

In our Server the card is Emulex 10000. Did you mean that we have to change the card. My plan is to use both controller through one connection, means add EVA_A and EVA_B to the same host.If antemeta wont support emulax1000 card it will be difficult again.

[SAN_8]

When i tried today to download the host the wwn i got in the command view and configured just for testing without antemeta but if antemeta wont support emulax card the issue is not closing

[Bret Graham]

AntemetA cannot be downloaded from the HP website. It must be purchased and you will then receive a CD or a compressed tar file can be sent via email/ftp.

[SAN_8]

Hi Graham

Can you tell me that emulax card will be supported by antemeta or only qlogic

[Bret Graham]

AntemetA is a product that requires the pre-existence of MPIO on AIX prior to installing.

AntemetA (not downloadable) and MPIO (downloadable) both support IBM fibre adapters 6228, 6239 and 5716s.

MPIO has a limitation where the queue depth on AIX for any EVA disks is limited to 1 which is not a good choice for a production environment.

AntemetA allows for any supported queue depth by AIX and so provides much better performance.

AntemetA supports all flavors of EVA and their software/firmware versions.

Secure Path only supports EVA3/5000s with VCS 3.x and only with the Cambex adapters.

[SAN_8]

Thanks man appreciate really usefull all of your advice and help

I will try and come back with the result in this thread

with lots of thanks

gopi@bankmuscat.com

[Tom O'Toole]

It sounds like you probably have a 5716 card. Do a

lscfg -vl fcs0

The FRU number for the 5716 is 03N6441.

I have no experience with using this IBM card with eva5000, I've only used securepath with cambex cards, but you can certainly try the single path idea and see if it works.

Once you have fixed the HBA setup to point to point and have an F-port per Bret's instructions, you will need to zone only one path. Create a special alias for the EVA consisting of only one EVA host port, and zone this to the IBM HBA. You might have to run cfgmgr to see the IBM HBA wwid in CV/EVA in the host definition menu. You then define the IBM host and present storage to it. Run cfgmgr again and you should get 1 hdisk per vdisk.
Please post back here how it goes.


The queue depth=1 issue with MPIO on the active/active EVAs is something HP neglected to put in their marketing collateral:-)
I have heard that xcs V6 will fix this limitation. Anyone know if that's true and what other pieces (e.g. HP MPIO 'fileset') need to be upgraded?

[Bret Graham]

Yes, XCS 6 will indeed remove the queue depth of 1 limitation with MPIO. You will be able to use any supported queue depth. The one feature of MPIO that will not be supported with XCS 6 is the round_robin load balancing. Load balancing will still be a manual process.

There will also be a new MPIO kit from HP for this XCS 6 version. It will be version 1.010.

[Carles City]

Hi,
about the comment of Bret Graham (Aug 16, 2006 14:17:54 GMT) telling :

"MPIO has a limitation where the queue depth on AIX for any EVA disks is limited to 1 which is not a good choice for a production environment"

at the present time, is it still true? We recently have installed the ODM of the MPIO driver for AIX version 1.0.1.0
(http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=12169&prodSeriesId=421503&prodNameId=421504&swEnvOID=1043&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=co-43296-1)
that -in theory- increases the queue depth to 8. With this version, is it still valid that is not a good choice MPIO for AIX for a production environment? We're experiencing high loss of performance in the access to disks from an IBM pSeries AIX 5.3 since we upgraded the EVA VCS to VCS 4.004 (active-active), and changed from Secure Path to MPIO for AIX. The other servers and/or operating systems we've connected to the EVA (Windows 2000, Netware 6.5, VMware ESX) doesn't low their performance in accessing the vDisks located on the EVA.

Anyone is having the same problems ?

Thank you in advance,

Yours,

[Bret Graham]

The reason your performance went down when you upgraded to VCS 4.004 with MPIO kit 1.0.1.0 is the queue depth resolution was only put into XCS 6.000 for the EVA4/6/8000s.

By using any of the MPIO kits with VCS 4.x or XCS 5.x you will get a queue depth of 1. HP modified the code in XCS 6.000 only, with the help of IBM to make queue depths greater than one. There *may* be changes to newer versions of VCS 4.x and XCS 5.x that allow the queue depth to be more than one. But for now, you are limited to one.

In this case, the best fit with IBM adapters and VCS 4.004 is AntemetA which does allow a queue depth greater than one on all VCS and XCS versions.

Best regards,
Bret

[Carles City]

Thank you very much, Bret, for your fast and interesting answer.
Our situation is nearly critical (the performance of our AIX accessing the databases in the EVA3000 goes down almost everyday, and more than 1000 users want us to give them, at least, an explanation). So, can you give me more details about your comment?

1) you've said that the "queue depth resolution" is not implemented on VCS 4.004. Was it implemented on VCS 3.025? What do you mean with "queue depth resolution" ?
2) I thought that the queue depth was only concerned to the device definition on the operating system (in this case, AIX, but is also present on HP-UX): every device (in this case, disk devices) has a queue depth depending on the hardware behind it (in this case, vDisks located on a EVA3000).
3) If the problem "is" on the EVA3000 (on the firmware version VCS 4.004), I don't know why an external software (AntemetA) could solve the situation.
4) Could you tell me where to find official (or unofficial) HP documentation talking about all these things? HP support is not helping us too much ...

Again, thank you very much for your help

Yours,

Carles Ciutat
BARCELONA