Posted by Brian on Feb 4, 2011 in Hardware, HP, HP | 1 comment
Recently I was pulled into an issue involving an HP MSA 2312fc array. The device had a failed Controller B and for some reason it was also affecting the A Controller. This was causing the OS on the servers receiving storage from the device to loose connection to the vdisks. The way things are suppose to work with the MSA as in any array is for the other controller to take ownership and continue to provide connections to the vdisks. For some reason this did not happen.
When looking at the management console on the MSA 2312 you could clearly see that controller B was failed and that A had taken ownership over of any vdisks. But something with the fail over did not fully complete or corrupted something because it did not work as expected. Even with removing the failed controller from the device the vdisks were still not usable by the servers.
Once the failed part was replaced the configuration was copied to the replaced controller and service was restored. Then it was time to make sure the firmware levels matched on both controllers and update accordingly.
In the past I had been warned to proceed with caution about updating firmware levels on MSA arrays. I had read several horror stories about them getting stuck in loops during the update process. We did encounter this when the controllers tried to sync them selves to match the firmware levels. I was told by an HP Support Engineer that it’s best to disable this auto sync feature when it comes to updating firmware to prevent these loops. It can then be enabled after the updates are done on both controllers.
Below are a few steps to prevent the automatic firmware update from the partner controller. The first image below shows you how to access the Firmware options from the Advanced Settings area of the Configuration menu.
The next image is showing the option to turn on or off the Partner Firmware Update option. This determines if the firmware on a new controller is auto updated when it is inserted. The HP support engineer recommended that we disable this option prior to installing the new controller. If you did not follow this you can always come back and change and they wait for the current update to fail. This is what we had to do that ended up stopping the continuous loop that was happening.
The last image just shows what you will see if you log into the management controller that is being updated.
Brian is a Technical Architect for a VMware partner and owner of this website. He is active in the VMware community and is helps lead the Chicago VMUG group. This blog Virtualize Tips was started to document and remember things that I come across while working with tech.
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Posted by Brian on Apr 2, 2010 in Guides, Tools | 10 comments
I recently setup a HP MSA 2300 series storage array. It was the SAS model with 4 enclosure trays. I have to admit that I have not setup one of these with Fiber or iSCSI but they are very similar other than the assign to host part. In the setup guide I cover how to configure the management interfaces, create Vdisks, create volumes and then assign them to hosts. It covers different ways to setup your hot spare drives.
After reading this short document you will be able to get that new MSA array up and running quickly. I set my array up to talk to a small 3 node vSphere cluster but the setup would be the same if you were using for a Windows cluster or most other uses.
You can download the PDF of the document How to Setup MSA array here.
Update 1-10-2011
I saw that someone else has created a Best practices document for the P2000 series. It’s not an official document but worth a look for new users. Have a look here.
Brian is a Technical Architect for a VMware partner and owner of this website. He is active in the VMware community and is helps lead the Chicago VMUG group. This blog Virtualize Tips was started to document and remember things that I come across while working with tech.
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Posted by Brian on Mar 1, 2010 in VMware, vSphere | 2 comments
Well today I finally got to break the seal on our new HP MSA 2312sa Storage. Its a lower end SAN configuration that uses SAS drives and controllers. It is supported in vSphere and ESX 3.5 Update 3 and up. The MSA line of storage is the lower end offering from HP and cost was a big reason why the client choose this configuration.
The MSA 2312sa was configured with 4 chassis’s and has redundant controllers. We also have dual port SAS HBA’s in the ESX hosts. Each of the chassis can hold 20 disks, which are available in 450 gb up to 1 tb each at the moment. The 2 tb disks are expect by summer of 2010. The MSA offers a variety of RAID options and the ability to tie a hot spare disk to a specific vDisk or operate as a global spare for all vDisks.
The setup and management of the MSA series is done from a web based console. The console looks a lot like the server iLo screens but on steriods. You can create you vDisks and then cut them into LUN/Volumes that you can then present to your hosts. The console offers both list views and picture options. The picture option shows you what the front or back of the configuration would look like including which lights would be lit at the time.
So far I am pretty impressed on the ease of use for a lower end piece of storage gear. I will write a new blog post on how well it performs once I start loading on some VM’s.
Brian is a Technical Architect for a VMware partner and owner of this website. He is active in the VMware community and is helps lead the Chicago VMUG group. This blog Virtualize Tips was started to document and remember things that I come across while working with tech.
Mail | Web | Twitter | LinkedIn | More Posts (169)
