Bad EMC PowerPath Installation

[Filipe_1]

Hi,

I am almost certain that we have a problem, but I would like to see someone with better knowledge on this issue give us an opinion.

We have installed PowerPath in one of our most critical boxes by a third part consultant.

I never worked with powerpath before, so I don't have something to compare.

The powermt and ioscan output is attached. As I can see:

- policy=NoRedirect. It means that no load balancing are being done, probably by a license problem.

- we have two HBAs, 2 devices being accessed by one, and six by the other. This is no good of I want to do a proper load balancing, right?

Thanks, and any help would be much appreciated.

Filipe.

[Stuart Abramson · Accepted solution]

1. You should get your money back from the 3rd party consultant.

Here is what he did wrong:

1. He didn't activate your license. Call EMC and check on this.

2. That's why you didn't get any "redirect".

Here's my powermt output:

powermt check_registration

Key BJIY-D2YM-xxxx-yyyy-zzzz-9999
Product: PowerPath
Capabilities: All


# powermt display dev=all | more
Symmetrix ID=000387720106
Logical device ID=0221
state=alive; policy=SymmOpt; priority=0; queued-IOs=0
==============================================================================
---------------- Host --------------- - Stor - -- I/O Path - -- Stats ---
### HW Path I/O Paths Interf. Mode State Q-IOs Errors
==============================================================================

"SymmOpt" is what you want...

2. You don't have device files for the "c10" string on the disks. Only the "c12" string. So i would call that a bad thing. Do this:

symcfg discover
ioscan
insf -e

and they should appear.

3. You didn't send a "vgdisplay", but you don't have any dual access on your disk at all, event he "free" "alternate links" from HP-UX. So set that up RIGHT NOW. Do this:

vgscan -a

I think that the "-a" option will add both paths.

[Filipe_1]

Thanks Stuart,

A I had figured, we have a license issue here...

The steps you suggested plus the proper configuration and the license installation should be:

vgscan -a
powermt set policy=so dev=all
powermt display dev=all

One more thing. The box is on production. Would this procedure affect something?

Rgds,

Filipe.

[Stuart Abramson]

It can all be done right now in production with no outage.

You are at risk because you could lose an HBA (unlikely) or someone could step on a fibre cable in the computer room. We're not talking URGENT! URGENT! but normal risk. You should fix this as soon as possible within the next few days.