The SAM Team Asks YOU About Peripheral Devices, Disks, and File Systems

[Richard Darling]

1. How often do you use the UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) Area in SAM under Peripheral Devices? - never

Approximately how many UPS units do you have? -one

2. What are the most common tasks you perform when administering peripheral devices, disks, and file systems? increase file system size



3. In reference to the tasks listed in question 1, what types of tools do you use to complete these tasks? (Command?line utilities, SAM, Other ? please name) What is the advantage of using this tool for this task? never have used any tools

4. Does SAM fulfill your peripheral devices, disks, and file system management needs? How could SAM be changed to better fit the work you do in this area? make the mirroring of disks easier

5. If you have OLAR-able cards (OnLine Add and Replace), does SAM?s OLAR mechanism meet your needs? How often do you OLA/OLR a card? Which one do you use more frequently ? OLA or OLR? If Card OLD (OnLine Delete) were available now, how much would you expect to use it compared to OLA/OLR? don't have them

[Joel Shank]

1) Our entire floor is UPS protected, so I don't use this SAM feature.

2) I use SAM to configure modems, printers, users and groups. I use the line commands for vg/lv creation and extension because I have more control over their placement on specific disks.

3) N/A

4) See (2)

[Don Curtis_1]

Let me preface this by saying I am a bit of a novice (And VERY rusty skill-wise) when it comes to HP-UX.

1. How often do you use the UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) Area in SAM under Peripheral Devices? Approximately how many UPS units do you have?

Initial setup only. 100+ units


2. What are the most common tasks you perform when administering peripheral devices, disks, and file systems?

Printer setup, Create a new file system, Configure swap space, Create a logical volume, extend LV.

3. In reference to the tasks listed in question 1, what types of tools do you use to complete these tasks? (Command?line utilities, SAM, Other ? please name) What is the advantage of using this tool for this task?
N/A

4. Does SAM fulfill your peripheral devices, disks, and file system management needs? How could SAM be changed to better fit the work you do in this area?
SAM does not seem to properly support CDROM. I have had to manually change the file system type to CDFS.

5. If you have OLAR-able cards (OnLine Add and Replace), does SAM?s OLAR mechanism meet your needs? How often do you OLA/OLR a card? Which one do you use more frequently ? OLA or OLR? If Card OLD (OnLine Delete) were available now, how much would you expect to use it compared to OLA/OLR?
N/A

[Michael Tully]

Dear SAM Team,

1. We have a UPS and generator set which covers
our entire data centre.
2. We only use SAM to set up modems
3. Command line is used for all disk/VG/LV
related activities, we feel is gives us greater
control. As one ofg the posts states, it can
save missing a step, but then again you don't
learn anything either.
4. SAM is far too slow for many of the tasks
that can be done on the command line.
5. No OLAR at our site yet.....

The 500 user limit filter is a real pain,
that is why we have reverted to command line
for all/most user related problems.

Regards
Michael

[Satish Y]

1. I never used, but was used by my seniors to configure one UPS and rest HP engineer itself configured.
2. Create a new filesystem, configure swap,dump,root and other LVs, installing new device drivers, etc.
3. As I told only ome configured on cmd line, rest all by HP engineer.
4. Only issue is the speed rest all fine.
5. No OLAR used.

Cheers...
Satish.

[Juan González]

Hi,
1. We don't use SAM for this. We have about 25 UPS.
2 A. Configure printers.
B. Configure modems.
3. Command-line utilities
4.I think SAM might increase its speed retrieving data.
5. No OLAR

Best regards
JGM

[Stefan Grein]

Hi Sam Team,

1. I have never used this area. We have only one UPS in use.

2. A and C.

3. Command line. It is the easiest way to do it.

4. Yes SAM fulfills the requirements, but it takes quite a long time to get the file system information, if you have a lot of disks in your system.

5. No OLAR


Rgds
Stefan

[Bastings, M.M.G.]

1. How often do you use the UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) Area in SAM under Peripheral Devices? Approximately how many UPS units do you have?
Reply: only at installation time. Have 4 ups in 5 systems. ( one does 2 of them )

2. What are the most common tasks you perform when administering peripheral devices, disks, and file systems?

Reply: Mostly Creating and reorganising (large) file systems and volumes.

3. In reference to the tasks listed in question 1, what types of tools do you use to complete these tasks? (Command?line utilities, SAM, Other ? please name) What is the advantage of using this tool for this task?

reply: vi /etc/inittab, and /etc/ups_conf
Advantage of using SAM: these few used admin tasks are not part of the working knowledge set of the average admin.
Advantage of using SAM is: it does (when ok)do the job quick and without "investigation".

4. Does SAM fulfill your peripheral devices, disks, and file system management needs? How could SAM be changed to better fit the work you do in this area?
For disks and fs, lvm yes.
For Tape (DLT 4700) when used with interactive backup/recovery: Sam has gotten ( who wrote that?) the internal error code 1 of type NOTE with the associated strings: 10/4/16.5.0 Quantum DLT4700

5. If you have OLAR-able cards (OnLine Add and Replace), does SAM?s OLAR mechanism meet your needs? How often do you OLA/OLR a card? Which one do you use more frequently ? OLA or OLR? If Card OLD (OnLine Delete) were available now, how much would you expect to use it compared to OLA/OLR?

reply: no such systems yet.

[Bill McNAMARA_1]

1. How often do you use the UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) Area in SAM under Peripheral Devices? Approximately how many UPS units do you have?
I don't use UPS, it's probably only vitally important for mission critical sites running
servers/arrays with only one power ip...
ie the Ks and Ds and FC30. The newer arrays
and servers have two (although optional)
power supplies. HA in some cases can be overkill.
The best UPS in any case is the network driven
ones from MG.. probably only ones supported when we're talking about partitioning systems
anyway. They provide their own management s/w
I believe too.

2. What are the most common tasks you perform when administering peripheral devices, disks, and file systems?

I don't creates filesystems every day.. Backup/restores are more regular activity.



3. In reference to the tasks listed in question 1, what types of tools do you use to complete these tasks?
Commandline. Quicker/ more control..


4. Does SAM fulfill your peripheral devices, disks, and file system management needs? How could SAM be changed to better fit the work you do in this area?

Performance.


5. If you have OLAR-able cards (OnLine Add and Replace), does SAM?s OLAR mechanism meet your needs? How often do you OLA/OLR a card? Which one do you use more frequently ? OLA or OLR? If Card OLD (OnLine Delete) were available now, how much would you expect to use it compared to OLA/OLR?

Yea, I think it's quite nice. (other than the early release!.. OLAR - power off, replace!, power on)
I would think it would be nice to be able to replace a card with a different version...
but remember too, if I'm replacing a card, it's probably because it's failed.. I've probably paniced or hung my OS already... I really don't see key reasons for OLAR apart for preventive maintenance.
Can I reclaim my instance numbers with OLD????

You need to change the ICON for parmgr... it looks like the guy is panicing!

PS: I really like service control manager and prefer the sam interface in html rather than X.

Later,
Bill

[Volker Borowski]

1.) never
2.) nearly everything, used to use SAM in 10.20 for all beside LVCREATE/LVEXTEND because of the missing possibility to assign which disk to use
3.) no
4.) Do not use SAM in 11.0 any more for this -> too slow now !
5.) none

Volker

[Wodisch]

Hello SAM Team,
nice idea to ask over here - but could you
send it to some other place? I am notified by
e-mail and your posting was not included :-(

Now for the questions:
1) Only do it manually, never tried with SAM
2) disks: PVs, VGs, LVs, Filesystems, mirroring
=> always from command-line, SAM does
not support the needed options
and had silly(!) defaults for most
dialogs, like "vgcreate" - do you
still believe in 4MB PEs???
serial: modems, terminals
=> create the device files with SAM,
the rest from command-line, why
are the defaults in "gettydefs"
still broken (for germany)???
printers: local, remote, network
=> local with "lpadmin", remote with
SAM, JetDirect with "jetadmin"
X-terminals:
=> command-line
filesystems: increase OnlineJFS
=> command-line
3) SAM I use where simple, and fast enough,
and able to do the job, command-line for
the rest; especially on MC/SG clusters,
and where a documentation of what I did is
needed (all I did!)
4) Speed would be nice, less swap-usage would
be nice, config-files for defaults for all
dialogs would ber VERY nice, rules perhaps!
5) Have not used those, yet.

HTH,
Wodisch

[Gram Ludlow]

1. We don't use SAM for UPS, mostly because we have very large UPSs and a backup generator.

2. The most common task I perform is re-sizing (or trying to resize) volumes.

3. I try to use SAM for changing sizes (say, increase the /opt space available) but often I find some problems. Sometimes when I try to make a new volume group, delete it, and make it again, I have problems getting SAM to recognize that it isn't there anymore.

SAM can be very good though, in some cases. I like how fast it'll resize things, when it can.

Mostly I use command-line oprations, to make sure things get done correctly.

4. It fits my needs well, but it could be better. I think the thing I'd most like to see would be a graphical representation of volume groups, disks, etc within SAM. It would be very, very nice to be able to "click and drag" to move and resize partitions within SAM.

5. No, we don't have any OLAR-able cards.

[John Poff]

1. We don't use the UPS part of SAM. We have a single 300Kva UPS and a generator for our entire data center.

2. Mostly adding space to existing filesystems, add some new PVs to existing VGs, sometime create new VGs, LVs and filesystems.

3. I prefer the command line utilities as it is quicker and seems easier.

4. No. I've used the command line for a long time. It would be nice if SAM offered more flexibility (using LEs instead of size in MB).

5. N/A.

[Evert Jan van Ramselaar]

1) On my home HP setup I don't have a UPS (yet), so I never use this feature.

2) A) Extending filesystems
B) Creating filesystems
C) Adding printers

3) A) commandline
B) commandline
C) SAM

4) No real problems in using SAM, only thing is that is is pretty slow compared to i.e. Smit in IBM AIX.

5) N/A

[Curt Thompson]

Hello HP SAM team:

Thanks again for asking our input.

1) The UPS area of SAM is used initially on all new system installations since we only use HP UPS's. Each system we use has an HP UPS.

2) SAM is mostly used for adding new disks to existing VG's and extending LV space onto new and existing VG's.

3) We only use HP UPS's for each new system. Although we could just edit the appropiate files, we find using SAM to be a quick and easy alternative for UPS configuration.

4) Yes

5) We have some N-class machines but do not use OLAR yet.

[LORI_39]

1. Never. We do not use SAM to manage our UPS.

2. Add printers, configure modems, volume groups, logical volumes, file systems, etc.

3. Out UPS systems are completely external from our computer systems. They have motor generators, batttery backups etc. The HP systems are not used to manage this environment.

4. Sam performs most tasks adequately. It is extermely slow, and does not always give the degree of control that we desire. When creating volume groups SAM does not allow options for setting the primary/optional path for dual pathed devices. When creating logical volumes SAM does not provide the ability to place the logical volume on a specific physical volume.

5. OLAR is not currently being used. When we start using it we will look to command line utilities for scripting purposes.

[Ian Cameron]

1) Our datacenters are all covered by central UPS and generators.

2) a) add tape drives
b) add and setup printers
c) change and add/delete vgs and lvols
d) create software depots for patching
e) create device files for peripherals if required
f) change swap space

3) a) SAM takes care of drivers and kernel changes
b) SAM
c) 90% SAM 10% command line
I like SAM because it lets me see the whole picture
I have also found that as I use the more difficult commands it is better on the c/l side for setting other options than the defaults
d) SAM and command line - SAM eliminates any possible typos and I find it very easy to use for this
e) SAM and command line - depends on my mood
f) SAM on the rare occasion that I have to

4) I am still fairly new to full out Unix admin and I find SAM is great for filling in the blanks when I have to do some of the more complex tasks.

5) No OLR/OLA cards in use.

[sathish kannan]

1. N/A.
2. I uses SAM mostly to find new devices added. Becoz SAM will identify new and easy to allocate. Sometimes to change lan settings.
3. For creating VG, LV and FS I will use command line only, since it is fast and I can modify lot ( Even SAM will do - but in a factor of time and PV links I feel command line is better )
4. SAM does but is it is very slow. Also it would be appreciable that the SAMLOG file give us more detail about the command SAM used to complete the task. Ex - Online JFS functions.
Also the user limitation display task shud be removed.
5.N/A

Regards
Sathish

[steven Burgess_2]

1. I use sam to configure the power trust UPS and for ups_mond dameon

2. I find sam useful with regard to setting up a trusted system

3 We actually have added our own menu's with regard to checking oracle tables and basic network and filesystem checks

4 Use it for adminstration of user accounts on none trusted systems

[Volker Borowski]

1. never, we use 3rd party UPS, not supported by SAM (7)

2. Create Volume groups (to avoid errors on the minor number of the group file). All the rest I do by commandline, because of speed. SAM is very slow to collect all information before it pops up the menus.

3. commandline tools provided by UPS vendor

4. Become quicker.

5. No

Volker

[Alexander M. Ermes]

Hi SAM team.
Here my 0.02 cent :

1a min. once a month
1b Powertrust 3kVA -4- 5.5 kVA -1-

2 setup modems, ups; admin Lvols, swap devices

3 SAM
easy to use

4a yes
4b don't know

5 don't have

Rgds
Alexander M. Ermes

[Andreas D. Skjervold]

Hi

1. Never used SAM ares for UPS, have 1 main UPS for whole computerhall.

2.
A. Creating filesystems / lvolumes
B. Create Swapspace
C. Create raw devices

3. N/A

4. Yes

5. N/A

Andreas

[George_Dodds]

1) n/a

2) change/ add/delete vgs and lvols
change/add swap space
kernel changes

3) command line for speed on older systems.

4)Yes it does, just same old speed problem the only issue but it still does the job.

4 n/a

[John Bolene]

You can reply to this, but this message is so old, that they will not be responding.

Someone pulled it out of the depths and replied.

[T. M. Louah]

I use SAM to :
- Manage Lvols, create, extend & reduce, including vgs/lvols on DiskArrays & VAs. Just an FYI, Attached is an example of error generated by SAM while requesting info from a VA7100 on an L3000/11.0. This was corrected by applying latest QPK1100 patch bundle.
- Add Modem
- Add Local/Remote/Network printers
.. & more

regards,
t++