3rd party disks and SG

[AMSA Unix Admin]

Hello,

Has anyone successfully configured an MC SG, HP 11i, Oracle OPS/RAC using 3rd party disks? We are considering doing so but mgmt here is concerned that 3rd party disks won't work for us.

We've never run service guard but are about to put together an order for new h/w and s/w. We plan on getting one of the new rp8400's and creating 2 hard partitions and then clustering them together. We intend to run hp-ux 11i, and oracle 9i RAC (the new version of OPS).

Storage will be on fibre channel san, about 1-2TB.
We have quotes from HP for the server and for the storage. We also have quotes for 3rd party storage (LSILogic MetaStor 4400). LSILogic certifies to be compatible w/ HP SG, and Oracle OPS. From the specs it is also >2x faster (380MB/s vs. 160MB/s) than the HP va7400 array we are considering. And it is about %20 less expensive.

If anyone can offer any advice pro or con I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks

Chuck Davis

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi AMSA,

I've run MC/SG for quite a while on EMC equipment w/o trouble. Both as standalone arrays & in a SAN. Using whatever (mainly Seagate) disks EMC installs. The compatibilty of the disk is important to the array. The LUNS are what is important to the OS.

I would think that IF they claim compatibilty then they should be willing to WRITE that into the purchase agreement AS WELL as the support contract. Then if they aren't - you've got recourse.

ALWAYS check references of as similar a config as possible. If you can't get refs - that should be a big flag.

HTH,
Jeff

[Sanjay_6]

Hi Chuck,

If the disks will work under hp-ux, you can use those disks with SG. There is no seperate requirement for SG. The main thing is that the disk should be sensed and should work with standard HP-UX. If it does, you can go ahead and place the order for third party disks. But HP may not support such hardware.

Hope this helps.

regds

[melvyn burnard]

There are companies using various 3rd party disc products in ServiceGuard, and some of these are supported by HP.
Specifically HP support the use of EMC arrays in MC/ServiceGuard.
You may get this configuration working and all will be fine for you, but if the disc equipment is not one that is listed by HP as supported, you may find yourself in dificulties when the time comes to troubleshoot/fix issues.

I also would like to point out that if, as I understand it, you are going to hard partition the Keystone system and SG between these two partitions, then this is a SPOF (Single Point Of Failure) in your design.