MSA P2000 controller A replace . question about PFA and FC WWID please help ...

[WillyEB70]

Dear all,

I've got an old dual controller MSA P2000 FC, active active redundancy mode.  I need to replace A. These are the level of the firmware:

Controller A Versions
---------------------
Bundle Version: TS252R007
Build Date: Fri May  8 15:40:57 MDT 2015

Controller B Versions
---------------------
Bundle Version: TS252R007
Build Date: Fri May  8 15:40:57 MDT 2015

From this manual https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docLocale=en_US&docId=c03793459

I see that PFU must to be disable in P2000 before replace the controller but  at this point I've a question.

What happens if the new controller A has a newer firmware than the one in B ?

I don't have any HPE CarePaq to download the latest firmware.

Another question is ... the new controller A can have different WWID so Do I make a new zoning

configuration of my san network ?

Thanks a lot. 

Best Regards

Enrico

[JonPaul]

@WillyEB70 
The P2000 has a Partner Firmware Upgrade (PFU) setting of "Burn to Latest".  This means if PFU is enabled and the 2 controllers have different firmware levels, the one with the latest build date will be flashed to the other.

Disabling PFU (CLI>  set advanced-settings partner-firmware-upgrade disabled)  will stop the system from automatically upgrading the controllers to the same version.
The PFU process does have some issues in the older generations, so while it is not recommended to run with different FW versions on each controller...  without support you may just want to chance having the controllers on different firmware to avoid any controller issues brought about by PFU.
And without the ability to download the firmware from HPE you are in a pickle about upgrading.

The P2000 is long out of support and you should not be using it for business critical purposes.

[WillyEB70]

Dear @JonPaul

I would like to have more information.. 

How can I check what firmware I have on the refurbished controller I received a few days ago and

how can I download the firmware for one of the two controllers ?

Can I take the compact flash from the old controller A to install this part inside the new controller ?

Best regards
Enrico

[WillyEB70 · Accepted solution]

Dear all,

I've solved my question in this way:

• disable Path Firmware Update
• shutdown controller A
• remove controller A from MSA P2000
• remove Flsh Card from this controller
• insert this Flash Card inside the new controller
• insert new controller in MSA P2000
• After 15 minutes I've re-enabled PFU
• After about 15 minutes both controller A and B are working with the same firmware

In my case this sequence worked correctly.

Best Regards

Enrico

[JonPaul]

@WillyEB70 
Glad everything worked out. 

Swapping the CF card will retain the data in the cache with the controller replacement.  perfectly fine to do.  The cache on the controller is mirrored on the other controller so even if you had not moved the CF card the data in cache would have been retained and written to disk by the other controller.  The 'transportable' CF card is there for the single controller systems or if BOTH controllers need to be replaced at the same time.