Understanding what I have: EVA5000

[Rich Bininger]

Hello,

I'm looking for some assistance in getting an EVA5000 up and running.

My boss, in his infinite search for a great deal, purchased a 42U EVA5000 rack at an auction from a company liquidation. I have the hardware unit and nothing else -- no software, no manuals, etc ...

I have experience with the HP StorageWorks MSA1000 units and the 4/8 Switch, as we have run these behind fail-over SQL clusters for about three years now, but the EVA5000 is obviously in a completely different class.

The system I received has the dual HSV110 shelves, 12 drive enclosures hosting 128-73Gb fiber drives, and a StorageWorks 2/16 switch with 9 SFPs installed. The drive enclosures, loop switches, and controllers are all wired and appear to power up correctly, although there is no wired connection from the controllers to the 2/16 switch.

What I have gathered both from the condition of the unit and its origin, as well as the documentation from the EVA5000 user guide, is that my boss purchased an incomplete unit. The user guide suggests that I need a management appliance (Command View EVA) to interconnect to configure all this. I am also at a loss as to how the 2/16 switch fits into the scheme, because as I search the HP site for the appropriate manuals, I find the release notes and installation guide on the 2/16 Switch, but no user guide.

I would be grateful for a point in the right direction.

Our goal is to use the large capacity EVA5000 for archive purposes, and I am confused as to what FC HBA I need to find for my hosts that will use this storage array (or even if any specific model is required -- such as the QLogics were with the MSA1000s), and how exactly they'll connect to it.

Any answers would be appreciated.

[Bill_Weir]

From your own standing start, you are going to have a hard time getting this thing up and running. As for archiving, the EVA500 is out of support in the next year or 2!

The controllers and your servers should plug into the switches and depending on the licenses on them, the switches will need "zoning".

You need to get a spare server connected and install command view onto it, so that you can controll the EVA.
I don't know what version of VCS code you are running on it so can't even say what version of command view you need to download. Later versions of CV need the latest version of VCS loaded on the controllers.

When you do get around to connecting servers you use "Secure-Path" rather than MPIO as multi-pathing software. Here's the rub, Secure-path used to be a chargeable product, not sure if it still is.

I'd suggest you get someone in to set it up for you or it's just going to sink a whole load of your time.

I hope this thing was cheap!