MPIO on Win2003 with EVA 8K

[gherbi]

Hi,
We have to nodes(win2003) on cluster

The node are Proliant BL45 with 02 HBA
The SAN switches are 2 HP StorageWorks 4/32 Switches.
Zoning is configured as 1 Zone for every Host containing the Host and both EVA controllers on the two HP StorageWorks.
The problem is :
when we make the node1 down the failover give the attached messages(on node2).

Regards,
Gherbi

[nowlleida]

Gherbi,,,

You can look articles Kb 280425 / Kb 293778
Kb886800

Regards,,
Toni


Ionut Marin (Last update 6/2/2006):
See M886800 for a hotfix applicable to Microsoft Windows Server 2003.

According to Microsoft the event occurs either if a disk has become unavailable or inaccessible (therefore, the Cluster service cannot find it), or if the signature on the disk has been changed. See KB280425 and KB293778 to fix this problem.

KB305793 gives information on how to replace a disk that is on a Windows 2000 or a Windows 2003 Server Cluster.


Mihai Andrei (Last update 12/7/2005):
From a newsgroup post: "The cluster disk driver was not able to find a disk with this signature. The disk may be offline or may have failed. This error may also occur if the drive has been replaced, reformatted, or is currently mounted and reserved by another server cluster node. This error may also occur if the node cannot join an existing cluster where the disk is already mounted. Therefore, this error may be a result of a communication problem or a problem joining an existing cluster. There may not actually be anything actually wrong with the disk".

If a hard disk is replaced, or the bus is reenumerated, the Cluster service may not find the expected disk signatures, and consequently may fail to mount the disk. See the link to "Cluster disk and drive connection problems" to solve this problem.

[pasquino bocci_1]

Hi,

Never forget to put the cluster in one zone, not 2 zones!!!
controller.

Requirements for Deploying SANs with Windows Server 2003 Clusters
The following list highlights the deployment requirements you need to follow when using a SAN storage solution with your server cluster. For a white paper that provides more complete information about using SANs with server clusters, see the Windows Clustering: Storage Area Networks link on the Web Resources page at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/reskits/webresources.

Each cluster on a SAN must be deployed in its own zone. The mechanism the cluster uses to protect access to the disks can have an adverse effect on other clusters that are in the same zone. By using zoning to separate the cluster traffic from other cluster or noncluster traffic, there is no chance of interference.

All HBAs in a single cluster must be the same type and have the same firmware version. Many storage and switch vendors require that all HBAs on the same zoneâ and, in some cases, the same fabricâ share these characteristics.

All storage device drivers and HBA device drivers in a cluster must have the same software version.

Never allow multiple nodes access to the same storage devices unless they are in the same cluster.

Never put tape devices into the same zone as cluster disk storage devices. A tape device could misinterpret a bus rest and rewind at inappropriate times, such as during a large backup.

Guidelines for Deploying SANs with Windows Server 2003 Server Clusters
In addition to the SAN requirements discussed in the previous section, the following practices are highly recommended for server cluster deployment:

In a highly available storage fabric, you need to deploy clustered servers with multiple HBAs. In these cases, always load the multipath driver software. If the I/O subsystem sees two HBAs, it assumes they are different buses and enumerates all the devices as though they were different devices on each bus. The host, meanwhile, is seeing multiple paths to the same disks. Failure to load the multipath driver will disable the second device because the operating system sees what it thinks are two independent disks with the same signature.

Do not expose a hardware snapshot of a clustered disk back to a node in the same cluster. Hardware snapshots must go to a server outside the server cluster. Many controllers provide snapshots at the controller level that can be exposed to the cluster as a completely separate LUN. Cluster performance is degraded when multiple devices have the same signature. If the snapshot is exposed back to the node with the original disk online, the I/O subsystem attempts to rewrite the signature. However, if the snapshot is exposed to another node in the cluster, the Cluster service does not recognize it as a different disk and the result could be data corruption. Although this is not specifically a SAN issue, the controllers that provide this functionality are typically deployed in a SAN environment.

For additional information, see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

301647 Cluster Service Improvements for Storage Area Networks

304415 Support for Multiple Clusters Attached to the Same SAN Device

280743 Windows Clustering and Geographically Separate Sites