MSA1000 failover test

[Gabriele Delconti]

How can I test fail over on a full redundant MSA1000 to be activated in production ?

- removing controller 2 (standby) -> system hangs (documented on HP note)

- removing controller 1 (active) -> controller 2 detects failure but server connection is lost

There is any way to simulate a failure/stopping controllers through MSA1000 CLI ?

Regarding the SAN fabric part, is disabling FC switch through web console a good fail over test or should I test physical removing of each switch too ?


Configuration:
MSA1000 full redundant FW4.32, FC switch FW 3.1.3a, DL380 G3 RH Linux ES3 upd3, rx2600 RH Linux AS3 upd3 all firmware/drivers updated to current versions.

[David Tapper_1]

Hi,

What kind of FCA are you using? Which driver and firmware?

Are you using Secure Path or Qlogic driver failover?

Regards,
David

[Gabriele Delconti]

Please discard my intitial question.

Failover did't work due to (two) problems:

1) SSP not configured (while required by linux hosts)

2) HBA activation sequence mismatch (simply swapped fibers in A6826 dual FC controller)


Now the question is:

How can I log MSA1000 the useful messages that are shown on controller LCDs ?

[tommy_28]

Gabriele,

Did you mention MSA1000 SSP is required for Linux qlogic failover? This information is quite important to my current case. One of my customer is using dual loop multipath configuration with MSA1000 + rhel3+ qla2300 driver 7, I suppose this configuration is supported by HP. But they just can't failover LUNs. I'll try enable SSP to see if it works.

[Gabriele Delconti]

YES, SSP is required under Linux according to HP and qlogic driver documentation (look at the end of the readme file) and ... actually it works!

HBA activationorder is important also. If it doesn't work, try to swap fiber on FC cards

gd

[tommy_28]

Gabriele,

You gave my case a great direction. SSP to set hostmode to linux just fixed the failover error. I should add great points to you despite you're question riser:)

Could you also explain 'HBA activation order'? I have no idea what does this mean and the effect to qlogic failover.

[Gabriele Delconti]

Nothing magic, as usual we have to read manuals first ;-)

Regarding the HBA activation order, please take a look at this:

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=220640&hpweb_printable=true

while they refer ro Win environment, this is also true for Linux. Anyway, if you were able to configure SSP for BOT HBAs, your activation order is already OK.


gd