BL870c's internal SAS: array monitoring from Windows?

[Robert Yung]

For the BL870c's internal 8port SAS controller, to manage arrays, I need to reboot to EFI and invoke the driver configuration.

I'm running Windows 2003 and I see no way to monitor the status of the arrays. How would I know if there is a drive failure? Perhaps the driver will trigger something over SNMP? The HP Array utility doesn't detect the controller since I suspect that utility is only for their higher-end controllers.

I believe the internal controller is really a LSI SAS 3000 series controller, so would I need to look toward LSI for the Windows component?

Thanks!
Robert

[Robert Yung]

I have HPSIM monitoring my servers. Does that present more possibilities? I'm not even sure if there is an utility for HPUX to monitor the controller-create array.

[Emil Velez]

From HPUX you would use sasmgr

According to the Manual "HP Smart Array Controllers for HP Integrity Servers User Guide"

You can use the Integrity Support Pack to automatically install the device drivers, Event Notification
Service, and Management Agents, or you can install these items manually.

The Integrity Support Pack is located on the Smart Setup media. To install the Integrity Support Pack,
launch Express Setup from EBSU and follow the on-screen instructions.

Installing device drivers
The drivers for the controller are located on the Smart Setup media. Updates are posted to the support
page of the HP website (http://www.hp.com/support/itaniumservers).
Installation instructions are provided with the drivers.

Installing the Event Notification Service
The HP Smart Array SAS/SATA Event Notification Service provides event notification to the Microsoft®
Windows® Server 2003 64-bit system event log and the HP Integrated Management log.

The most recent version of the software component is available on the support page of the HP website
(http://www.hp.com/support/itaniumservers). Installation instructions are provided with the component.

Installing Management Agents
The Management Agents are available on the Smart Setup media. The most recent versions of the agents
are available on the support page of the HP website (http://www.hp.com/support/itaniumservers).

Installation instructions are provided with the agents.
If the new agents do not function correctly, you might also need to update Systems Insight Manager.
The latest version of Systems Insight Manager is available for download at the HP website
(http://www.hp.com/servers/manage).

The wonderous things you find in a manual.

Emil

[Robert Yung]

The system was built using the Smart Setup disk and later updated with the Integrity Support Pack. Since the internal SAS is not part of the HP Smart Array family, those tools are not applicable.

[kris rombauts]

Hi Robert,

the HP Server Managements Agents will detect when a physicall hard disk goes bad, or when a logical drive and array become degraded due to a disk failure.
So the ways to see if something went wrong are these:

- SMH (System Home Page)
- The Windows system event log
- Any management application that is capable
of receiving SNMP traps from this server
(i.e. HP SIM)
- if you configure the HP Event Notifier and
configure your email adres, you even get
an email when certain events (not limited
to the build in LSI SAS controller but
covers most h/w components like DIMMs,
NIC, CPU, fibre HBA links, etc etc)



And yes you are correct, the ACU is only for the SmartArray based array controllers, the one in the BL870c is a LSI SAS raid controller and there is no online Windows GUI or commandline utility for Windows that allows to monitor/check or reconfigure. But then again, with all of the above automated ways to monitor online and log the status of the raid1 array health, i would say those are better then a manual action to go out and look if all is OK once in a while.
ACU for SmartArray based systems isn't capable of alerting you either, it would also require you to go out and look if all is OK it is just that there is no such tool for the LSI SAS array controller....


The BL870C can have two independent RAID1 arrays or one RAID1 and a hotspare disk, but all of these are properly monitored via the agents.


So the key thing here is to install the management agents.


HTH

Kris