RA4100 Redundancy
We have an RA4100 with dual RA4000 controllers that, a long time ago, was
set up for redundancy. What I want to do is remove this redundancy, so that the second RA4000 controller in the unit operates as a separate path to the same logical drives. What piece of software/hardware controls whether this second controller is in "redundant mode" or "additional path" mode? Thanks in advance. |
"WS" wrote in message ... We have an RA4100 with dual RA4000 controllers that, a long time ago, was set up for redundancy. What I want to do is remove this redundancy, so that the second RA4000 controller in the unit operates as a separate path to the same logical drives. What piece of software/hardware controls whether this second controller is in "redundant mode" or "additional path" mode? Thanks in advance. That isnt how redundancy works. Well, that isnt strickly true. You can have 2 HBA's in a system, and have one setup as a failover. You can have 2 RA controllers in a chassis, and one has to be in standby mode. Through combining multiple HBA's, multiple FCAL Hubs/Switches, and multiple RA cabinets with redundant controllers, you can have a reasonably HA system. But there will always be a momentary pause when the failover happens, regardless of how much hardware you throw at the problem. let me guess ... you are trying to build a cluster? make sure that the firmware on the RA controller is 2.60. this includes the ability to enable SSP (selective storage presentation) at the controller level, and will allow more than 1 HBA access to a volume. However, only 1 HBA can access that volume at a time. This is due to the way that NT based systems work with drive volumes and volume signatures. There is only 1 OS platform that can have multiple systems accessing the same physical filesystem at the same time. Only 1. And its a VAX. For 20 years, its what every other platform has tried to be. As for your question about dual path and all that ... what OS and version are you running? NT4 ? 2000? 2003 ? Linux? If I am wrong, tell me what you are trying to do and i will see what I can do to help. Ciao, - LC |
Hi There,
Thanks for your reply. What I'm actually trying to do is to remove the redundancy. Previously, I set it up so that each RA4000 controller in the 4100 chassis was attached to its own Sanswitch 8-EL, and each server had two HBA's with one attached to the first switch, and the other attached to the second switch. Now that we have moved away from the cluster scenario, and given that we are stuck with the 8-EL Sanswitches, I'd like to expand the number of servers that we can connect to our RA4100 by allowing the servers HBA connection to primarily connect to *either* the first RA4000 controller, or the second. Question is: Is this even possible? Am I just going to ahve to bite the bullet and purchase a larger switch? :o( BTW: All our servers are running W2K3. "NuTCrAcKeR" wrote in message ... "WS" wrote in message ... We have an RA4100 with dual RA4000 controllers that, a long time ago, was set up for redundancy. What I want to do is remove this redundancy, so that the second RA4000 controller in the unit operates as a separate path to the same logical drives. What piece of software/hardware controls whether this second controller is in "redundant mode" or "additional path" mode? Thanks in advance. That isnt how redundancy works. Well, that isnt strickly true. You can have 2 HBA's in a system, and have one setup as a failover. You can have 2 RA controllers in a chassis, and one has to be in standby mode. Through combining multiple HBA's, multiple FCAL Hubs/Switches, and multiple RA cabinets with redundant controllers, you can have a reasonably HA system. But there will always be a momentary pause when the failover happens, regardless of how much hardware you throw at the problem. let me guess ... you are trying to build a cluster? make sure that the firmware on the RA controller is 2.60. this includes the ability to enable SSP (selective storage presentation) at the controller level, and will allow more than 1 HBA access to a volume. However, only 1 HBA can access that volume at a time. This is due to the way that NT based systems work with drive volumes and volume signatures. There is only 1 OS platform that can have multiple systems accessing the same physical filesystem at the same time. Only 1. And its a VAX. For 20 years, its what every other platform has tried to be. As for your question about dual path and all that ... what OS and version are you running? NT4 ? 2000? 2003 ? Linux? If I am wrong, tell me what you are trying to do and i will see what I can do to help. Ciao, - LC |
Can I ask you what HBA's you are using to get access to the RA4100's? and
what firmware level you are running? I am running into several issues regarding HBA HW and RA4100. Thanks |
I have never been able to get those emulex cards (with the emulex driver and
HBAnywhere) to work with the RA4x00's. I have very limited success with the default windows 2000 driver and these cards. Be sure that you configure the bios so that the cards are running in a loop topology, and not a point to point (unless you are using a fabric switch, and not an FCAL repeater). I have scrounged a dozen or so StorageWorks Fibre Channel / P adpaters from ebay. They work great. Not as fast as I thought they would be, though. When I say limited success witht he emulex cards, I was never able to use the ACU to configure the FC Controller in the RA. In order to do that, you must use the StorageWorks controller. I hope that helps ... - LC "szentthomas" wrote in message lkaboutcomputing.com... Can I ask you what HBA's you are using to get access to the RA4100's? and what firmware level you are running? I am running into several issues regarding HBA HW and RA4100. Thanks |
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