Sharing the VA7410 with other unix systems

[SM_3]

We are using the VA7410 with N class servers on a SAN.
I'd like to attach a sun system to the SAN and VA7410.
Has anyone setup this hardware before?
What were you're experiences?

Thanks in advance!

[Uwe Zessin]

SM,

I don't have much experience with the VA7000 series, but I want to remind you about the importance of LUN masking. By default, the arrays will present all LUNs to all hosts at the same time. With Unix systems there is not so great danger, because you can decide if you want to mount the disk or not, but you must be _very_ careful not to write to the wrong disk!

Secure Manager is an extra license item for the VA7000 that enables you to control access, unless you have that, of course.

Also, remember that you very like have to make the SUN servers known to the VA7000 with the proper 'host mode' or 'operating system type'. You create a small file with the fibre channel adapter WWNs and the OS type and feed that information to the array, if I recall correctly.

It is very important that this is done propely, so let us know if my attempt to explain it was not enough - I am sure someone else with more understanding can tune in.

[Karthik S S]

Hi,

I have not done it myself. But it is possible to connect heterogeneous hosts to the VA array. You just have to set the host mode for the controllers. Gather WWN IDs of all the hosts and put them in a file something like this,

7d876a1243d090a3 WinNT
200a6b34b7894284 Linux
20a60088g132ca32 HPUX

And using the armhost command upload the configuration to the array. This way the controllers talk in the proper dialect to different OSs.

ex:
armhost -c -w -f behavior.txt AutoRAID3

Regards,
KarthiK S S

[Peter Mattei]

Well,
have a look at the VA installation manual on http://h200005.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/lpg60188/lpg60188.pdf

Start on page 44. First gather your hosts HBA WWNs.
You need them to build the host port behaviour table which tells the VA7410 what OS is behind which HBA (each OS works somehow different)
You also need the WWNs to build the LUN security table. This table tells the VA7410 which hosts are allowed to see and use what LUNs (also called selective storage presentation)
Cheers
Peter

[SM_3]

Thanks for that.

I was hoping for more experiences with SAN shared with other unix vendors.

But thanks for the tips.