Upgrade procedure Brocade 24K(HP SW2/128) -> DCX

[Litsov]

Good day all.
We are planning to upgrade the core Fabric directors from Brocade 24K to DCX which used with with XP storage and HP-UX clusters.
The task is to make all without interrupting the application.
I need your advice gues.
To make replacment without changing PID I need to save port addressing and put cables to DCX as it was on 24K.
If you remember 24K have 10 slot (1-4,7-10) - Data slot and 5,6 SP.
DCX have 12 slot (1-4,9-12). So the addressing slot/port at left side will changed.
Will PID(Port addressing) not changed?
Today we working on v5.3 FOS but we must to update to 6.x.x. What is problem I will expect with this firmware.
Thanks

[IBaltay]

Hi,
till FOS 6.1.0h all functionality is inside the FOS, since 6.1.1 the Webtools has been ported to the DCFM (Datacenter Fabric manager) and it is not present in FOS anymore...

[krusty]

First, a correction to IBaltey - all Webtools functionality was not ported to DCFM. Only a small subset of functionality was ported to DCFM - Webtools is alive and well post 6.1.1! You can view the Release Notes to see the few items that were moved to DCFM. (Brocade wants to you by their fabric software, like Cisco does)

Now, onto the bigger picture - migrating to your new SAN.

Rather than worrying about changing PIDs with the new fabric, what about doing the migration online? Just "vgreduce" out one fabric, and then move the cables (storage and host) to the DCX. Then do a "ioscan" and "insf -e" to get the new device files. Then vgextend to those new devices files. The just repeat with the other side.

I know this is a more difficult than I'm writing, but with some careful planning, you can do this. BTW, HP-UX 11i v3changes the LUN binding from PID (path) based to WWID (LUN) based, so this gets much easier when you upgrade.

Cheers,

Curt

[IBaltay]

http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/us/en/technologies/solid-state-storage-overview.html?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

Web Tools functionality Moved to DCFM
page 22

[IBaltay]

sorry 4 the wrong link, here is the good 1:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01612908/c01612908.pdf?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN


Web Tools functionality Moved to DCFM
page 22

[Stephen Kebbell]

Hi,

Curt's suggestion of doing the migration online is good. But it depends on how many ports you have to move.
I have done both types of migration: Moving the storage ports to another SAN switch and the "Rip-Out and Replace" method.
Moving the storage ports requires a lot of work on the HP-UX side if you have a lot of LUNs, but only one port at a time is ever offline.
If you "Rip-out and replace" one director with another, you have to see what blades you are using. The 24000 has ports 1 to 128, if you are using 16-port blades. The DCX can have either 32 or 48-port blades. The same ports numbers are available on the DCX. Example: Ports 64-79 are on Slot 7 in a 24k, and on slot 9 on the DCX. You will have to connect all your storage ports to the first 16 ports of each DCX blade to keep the same PIDs. It does not matter where your servers are attached. If you have storage ports attached to all 8 Portblades in the 24k, then the DCX will also need all 8 port-blades filled, if you want to keep the same Port (Area) Numbers.

Regards,
Stephen