SAN newcomer requesting help/pointers

[Richard Watts_2]

Hi All,

We've recently been tasked with building and supporting/hosting a SAN and cluster(s) for a new customer.

I've some experience of using these devices once they've been installed (from about 4 years ago), but in this scenario I've literally been sent a load of pieces and tasked with getting everything up and running.

The kit itself was ordered by the customer themselves, it has support packs but from what I can see this doesn't include installation services.

One quick question before I get too into details. Virtualised Arrays, what are they? I get the impression from the documentation I've found (limited as it is), that this basically seperates the logical RAID arrays from the physical disk architecture. I.e. I have a SAN with 44 146GB SCSI disks, the virtualisation software allows me to create multiple RAID arrays of whatever size I like without worrying how this translates onto the physical disks. Have I got the wrong end of the stick here?


Anyway, onto the meat of the problem. I've been shipped an EVA4000 in what appears to be a 2C4D configuration (packing note said 2C1D with an additional 3 M5314A drive enclosures - but these appear to have been installed). The EVA itself appears to have been wired up and 44 SCSI disks are installed.

I've been shipped a couple of HP StorageWorks SAN Switches 2/16V, 16 LC/LC fibre channel cable kits and 10 HBA's to go in 5 DL585 servers.

What I need to end up with is two active/passive clusters using shared storage on the SAN (with some rather complex RAID setups), alongside a single DL585 which will be using the SAN for some extra storage capacity.

Having looked at the documentation I believe the architecture I'm after is a "single resilient fabric with multiple device paths" (pg 60 of the SAN design reference guide).

From my perspective I'd rather arrange for an engineer to come onsite and perform the setup of the SAN and clusters for us, while passing that knowledge onto my team. Does anyone know of companies in the London area that offer this service?

Is this the sort of thing that HP will offer themselves as a service?

[Steven Clementi · Accepted solution]

Richard:


Let me try to answer some of your questions...

1. "Virtualized Arrays, what are they?" I believe your impression is mostly accurate. Virtualized Storage can have different meanings depending on who you talk to. The main idea is that you consolidate all your individual storage needs into this one device or network of devices that can supply the storage that you need in various places from one central location. It also allows you to grow your storage with minimal effort (usually).

2. "Does anyone know of companies in the London area that offer this service?
" I believe there are several forum participants that may know and/or work for integration companies in London. If your will to pay the airfare and get me a work visa, I will gladly shoot over.

3. "Is this the sort of thing that HP will offer themselves as a service?" Yes, and no. Sometimes HP will have internal staff perform what's called an I&S (Installation and Startup) or an SSS/SIS (Storage Implementation Solution) and sometimes they would have one of their partners perform the work. Either way, if you bought an EVA, you should automatically get the 2day I&S as part of the price of the EVA (unless they did away with that since I last worked for a reseller).

If you can set us up remotely, we can configure the whole thing for you and have a web conference for more formal training. ;o)

As per the reference guide, I think you have the wrong page. You have the equipment to build 2 completely seperate resilient fabrics each with multiple device paths and I belielive that is what you want.

Is this an EVA3k? 4k? 5k? 6k? 8k?

Do you have a dedicated server that you can designate as a SAN Management Server? perhaps the fifth dl585? You will need 1 server with 1 or 2 hba's in it to manage the EVA with Command View EVA 4.x.

Steven

[Bill Costigan]

As Steven said the two switches allow you to set up two separate fabrics, which is how you should configure it.

1. Don't connect the switches together
2. Make sure everything is connected to both switches, (you have 10 HBAs and 5 servers so you have enough ports)

With the new EVA product structure, you no lnoger need a dedicated server to manage the EVA, so any of your windows servers can be configured to run CommandView EVA which is how you configure the EVA.

Lastly, Virtual is more than Centralized storage. Centralized storage is [as the name suggests] putting all you storage in a central place, carving it up as servers need it and the servers usually access it via fiber channel.

Virtual is the separation of the physical disks from what the servers or hosts think is there. The array may have 44 physical disks but the array treats them a pool of storage. You create virtual disks (VDISKs) on the eva and present those to the hosts. The VDISKs can be of different sizes, use different RAID levels, and there can be more or fewer VDISKs than there are physical drives.

The EVA is both centralized storage and virtualized storage. A smart array controller in a server is not centralized but is virtualized.

[Richard Watts_2]

Thanks for the help guys.

The virtualisation thing was worrying me as I'd asked for a whole load of disks in various sizes and speeds, and been shipped 44 146GB disks. That now makes some sense. I assume you setup VDISKs using the CommandView and can assign them to whichever server you like?

On the two fabric thing, you mean it should be setup something like this?

http://www.snowvalley.com/richard/sanlayout-draft1.gif

That leaves me with 2 spare LC/LC cables, what have I misssed?

Is the commandview software something I can install here (rather than at my datacentre with the SAN) to have a play around with?

[Uwe Zessin]

Yes / Yes / I didn't count your equipment, but a few spares are never wrong ;-)

It does not make sense to install CV-EVA on a non-management system, that cannot communicate with an EVA as there is no 'demo' mode.

[Steven Clementi]

There used to be a Command View EVA emulator that you could "play around" with, but it was version 3.x. Not so different from 4.x, but it is outdated. Not even sure if it is available anymore. I have it on CD somewhere.



Steven

[Uwe Zessin]

Watch out. If you got it from HPCP, then it's maked NDA.

[Steven Clementi]

Oh... well.... um.... ;o)

Actually, I don't remember where I got it from... but if it is under NDA, then I am required not to distribute it (since I am under NDA as well).

Since it is older now though, it may be obtainable directly from HP if you wanted to check it out. It is not the greatest emulator in the world and your very limited to what you an do, but it is fun to get an understanding of how CVEVA works.

Steven

[Bill Costigan]

Your san-layout diagram is correct.

CommandView talks to the eva via the fiber channel so it cannot be remote. However, the interface into CommandView is web based
[https and java] so you can run the user unerface from anywhere. In fact even when you run it on the same server you use a web browser and connect to the loopback address.