offline vdisk in disk manager (Windows)

[Juan Enrique Hernández]

Hello,

I have a problem with the vdisks in my san, the san is an EVA4400 with two bl460 single path servers (windows 2003 server r2 sp2)

The problem is every time that restart the servers the vdisk not appear in my computer, they only appear in the disk manager and are in offline state and only activating manually the vdisks they can work it.

How can i solve this problem?

[Uwe Zessin]

We need a bit more information, like some screenshots (plain picture, maybe in a .ZIP archive - please do not collect in a Word document - thanks!). _How_ do you 'active' the vdisks?

Do both servers have shared access to the vdisks? Are they mounted at the same time? If yes - that is not allowed unless you are using MSCS to coordinate access from a single server at a time to the NTFS or use a true shared file system like HP's PolyServe.

[Juan Enrique Hernández]

Hi Uwe,

I have not access to server at this moment, but i have the answers for the questions

To activate the vdisk I go to My PC icon, then click rigth and go to manage, in this section select disk manager and this show Disk 0 (basic) c: drive = online, Disc 1 (dynamic)vdisk f: drive = offline, at this moment click rigth on disk 1 and select reactive disk

Note: Disk 0 C: are derver local disk RAID1
Disk 1 F: is a vdisk

All data is preserved after active the disk but is necesary repeat this after reboot the servers.

The servers not share disk every server has their own (lun) vdisk

[Timothy Cusson]

Verify you have the current fibre channel drivers installed. For example, if you have Qlogic fibre HBA's you should have FC HBA StorPort driver V9.1.7.17, and HP MPIO V3.10.00. Both drivers are required and can be downloaded from the HP website.

NOTE: You must install MPIO multipath driver even with single path connection because there are two EVA controllers, thus two paths. The exception would be if you used direct connect to a single controller or you used san switch zoning to a single EVA controller port.

[Juan Enrique Hernández]

Hi,

Are there a compatibility matrix where i Can review this problem?

Thanks and best regards.

[Timothy Cusson]

FYI

I've attached the EVA4400 controller firmware version XCS 9004000 release notes. The notes have intructions to download the EVA4400 controller firmware and the management module firmware. It also references the MPIO driver minimum version.

It would help if you provided more information about your configuration.

[Juan Enrique Hernández]

This is my information

[Timothy Cusson]

Part 1

Quick way to troubleshoot:

A) The information seems to show that you did not install the mandatory MPIO driver 3.01.00 for multipath SAN's. If you do not want to install this driver, then unplug one of the EVA fibre cables from the switch. Only connect controller A, port 1, not port 2. Now with only one fibre cable, you have a single path the the vdisks, and this way you don't need MPIO.

Or, you could change your zoning, remove port 1,1, only include 1,0, the first EVA port.

B) If you still have vdisk offline after reboot in single path configuration, lock the speed of the SAN switch ports to 4Gb or 2Gb, this will eliminate the autonegotiate delay at boot time.

=========================================

Part 2:

Recommendations:
A) Install MPIO 3.01.00 on all Windows servers attached to the EVA

B) Follow best pratice for zoning, create one zone for every fibre channel hba port.

For example...

Setup WWID alias names for each EVA port and for each server port...

Alias eva-ctrlA-port1 = 50:01:43:80:01:3c:3e:a8
Alias eva-ctrlB-port1 = 50:01:43:80:01:3c:3e:ac
Alias svr-cv-port1 = 10:00:00:00:c9:81:16:73
Alias blade2-port1 = 10:00:00:00:c9:80:69:16
Alias blade1-port1 = 10:00:00:00:c9:80:63:fa

Setup 3 zones, one zone per server...

svr-cv-port1-zone = eva-ctrlA-port1, eva-ctrlB-port1, srv-cv-port1

blade2-port1-zone = eva-ctrlA-port1, eva-ctrlB-port1, blade2-port1

blade1-port1-zone = eva-ctrlA-port1, eva-ctrlB-port1, blade1-port1

C) Best practice, change the san switch domain ID not = 1, not = 8 so lets make it 10 or higher.

D) Connect second port of each server fibre card so there is no single point (NOSP) of failure. Must have MPIO installed, update zoning, add 3 more alias and 3 more zones for port2 of each server FC HBA...

svr-cv-port2-zone = eva-ctrlA-port1, eva-ctrlB-port1, srv-cv-port2

blade2-port2-zone = eva-ctrlA-port1, eva-ctrlB-port1, blade2-port2

blade1-port2-zone = eva-ctrlA-port1, eva-ctrlB-port1, blade1-port2

Goof Luck