Storage Mirroring on an existing cluster

[Barry Sollitt]

Hello all,

I have an existing MCSC cluster direct attached to an XP256.

We have a brand new switched EVA5000 SAN and the cluster is configured to see both arrays with identical disks.

I am planning on using HP Storage Mirroring to copy the data from the XP to the EVA, has anyone else used this method before ?

I want to install Storage Mirroring on the passive node, then failover to this server and do the mirroring to the EVA drives.

Once this is done I will shut down the environment and bring up the copied EVA disks as the main cluster drives.

Please advise if anyone has done something similar and what problems may arise.

Thanks

[Uwe Zessin]

That sounds like a good idea. Are you allowed to have servers being able to 'access' EVA and XP simultaneously? I understand that you really use one server with the XP and the other with the EVA, but you wrote that both servers see both arrays. You were not allowed to do this in the past. I think this has been lifted somewhat, but I have not paid any attention.

[Chris Bennett_9]

According to the QuickSpecs, Secure Path 4.0C-7 supports both the EVA and XP array families. I would take this to mean that this solution may, in fact, be supported. I would talk to your HP Storage sales team to determine if this is, in fact, supported.

In our environment, we have XP arrays and MSA1500's connected to the same systems - with each array type on different mount points. I certainly wouldn't use host based volume management to stripe between different arrays, but at different mount points, we have not seen any issues.

[Steven Clementi]

Storage Mirroring is a great tool to migrate data, especially if you have lots of data and plenty of time to copy it over.

The easiest thing to do is to present your VDISKS to ONLY your passive node while your mirroring the data. Once the data is sync'ed with the XP system, utilize the Cluster Recovery Utility to swap the drives. The cluster should come back up as normal just like it is still running on the XP, except that the XP is being sold on ebay after the fact. (or being used ina test environment)


Steven