Hp Systems connected to EMC storage

[vaman]

I would like to know basic connectivity, terminnology & concept of emc storages connected to HP systems in san environments.
The EMC storages like symmetrix, clarrion & dmx.

[Fischer Klaus]

EMC - HP

[Stf]

Look at attached file on reply 1, I hope this may help you...

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=188544

Stf ;-)

[Geoff Wild]

Ask you EMC rep for an overview....

EMC is usually SAN attached - but you can connect directly if you want.

All connections are via fibre HBA's (Tachyon).

Concept is, you carve up the EMC and present LUNs to the HP servers (or any others)...so even though your server sees say 32GB drives - on the EMC side, you may have 146 GB drives, with LUNS striped across as many disks as you have in the frame.

Rgds...Geoff

[vaman]

Thanks stf, good information but I would like to get info like the hba's, sym, device groups, & terminolodgy used in emc, like how the disks presented to hp-ux host in san, the verious sym commands used.

[Geoff Wild]

fcmsutil on HPUX for HBA info.

syminq is main command from EMC to look at devices on host.

syminq - Issue SCSI INQUIRY command, and optionally SCSI
READ CAPACITY, on one or all devices. Also can
provide list of local host's HBAs.



If you have a backup server that backs up via bcv's (third mirror) - then you will also use:

/usr/symcli/bin/symmir

symmir - Perform Symmetrix BCV control operations on a
device group, composite group, a device within the
device group, or a list of devices in a device file.



A couyple of more:

symdg - Performs operations on a Symmetrix device group

For Disater Recovery between frames:

symrdf - Performs Symmetrix SRDF ping, control,
or modify operations on a device group, on a
device, or on a device list within the device group.
The device group must have a type of either RDF1 or
RDF2.


Rgds...Geoff

[Stuart Abramson]

I recommend that you get yourself an EMC PowerLink ID, and download EMC manuals.

PowerLink: powerlink.emc.com

A good manual would be:

EMC Host Connectivity Guide for HP-UX
P/N 300-000-614
REV A03

There are a LOT of EMC Solution Enabler commands. More than we could explain to you on this forum. (You never use them all...):

srdf - Performs Symmetrix SRDF operations on the members
symapisrv - starts or stops the remote symapi
symbcv - Performs support operations on a
symcfg - Discover or display Symmetrix configuration
symcg - Performs operations on a Symmetrix composite group
symchg - Marks areas of Symmetrix disk storage so that
symchksum - Performs Symmetrix checksum operations on
symcli - Provides a brief description of all the
symclone - Perform Symmetrix Clone control operations on a
symdev - Performs operations on a device given the
symdg - Performs operations on a Symmetrix device group
symdisk - Reports on the configuration and status of disks
symdrv - Performs support operations on a
symerase - Allows the user to erase symmetrix devices,
symevent - Allows for the monitoring and tracking of events
symgate - Performs support operations on a
symhost - Display host configuration information
symhostfs - Display information about file systems,
syminq - Issue SCSI INQUIRY command, and optionally SCSI
symioctl - Send IO control commands to a specified
symlabel - Performs Device Label operations on one or
symld - Performs operations on one or more STD devices
symlmf - This command is used to register Solutions
symlv - Display performance statistics and detailed
symmir - Perform Symmetrix BCV control operations on a
symoptmz - Display or Set parameters that control the
sympd - Performs operations on a device given the
symqos - Quality of Service CLI.
symrdb - Display detailed mapping information about one
symrdf - Performs Symmetrix SRDF ping, control,
symreplicate - Performs coherent, recurrent, background copy
symreturn - This command is used within a a pre-action or
symrslv - Display detailed mapping information about
symsnap - Perform Symmetrix Snap control operations on a
symstat - Displays statistics information about a
symvg - Display information and Provision Logical

[Rita C Workman]

Vaman,

Above has given you good information to start.

You mention you want SAN info too...hba, etc.

There are, in effect, two layers of technology your referring to. One is the symcli layer, which is controlling the luns/disks by device and device groups. These plays closely with HP's LVM layer.

Now when you speak of SAN commands, you are talking a different layer. This is the layer that ascribes the switch/port; HBA/FA information. And this layer involves zoning, which is not to be taken lightly. To have access to this you would have to have administrative access to the switches.
Before you get into this, I'd highly recommend you seek out some decent SAN classes with a good amount of hands-on labs.

Rgrds,
Rita

[Mark Greene_1]

If you are going with a Clarrion then you'll be looking at installing PowerPath and Navisphere on the HP system, and using powermt and navcli commands to interface with them, respectively.

The Clarrion uses a web-based thin client interface to run navisphere on the SAN side, so the amount of command-line activity on the HP side is minimal. Couple with EMC's Visaul SAN product which greatly facilitates on-line management, there's not much to it. 80% of the learning curve is conceptual, with the remaining 20% being learning the web interface and a the two commands I mentioned above.

You can have EMC do all the setups for new systems which takes you out of the loop on the fibre switch, or you can do that yourself which means you'll also have to learn the fibre channel stuff with the switches and HBAs (Host Bus Adaptors--like a NIC, but Fibre instaed of ethernet).

As suggested, go to EMC's website and poke around. They have a ton of documentation there. You may also want to check out Brocades's web site (www.brocade.com) for more info on the Fibre protocol and the hardware associated with that.

mark

[Isaac Loven_4]

Hi Vaman,
we have 3 RP4440's connected to a emc CX500.
We don't use emc's powerpath s/w. The only advantage with this s/w is that it load ballances accross all the fibres and blots the size of the kernel. We just use LVM.
Do an ioscan, insf and the disks are then available to put into a volume grp.
I suggest u search this forum for "SAN" and emc to get more info.
Good luck.
Isaac
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