Administrator Guide

For more information about performance statistics, see Viewing performance statistics, Updating historical statistics, Exporting
historical performance statistics, and Resetting performance statistics.
About firmware updates
Controller modules, expansion modules, and disk drives contain firmware that operate them. As newer firmware versions
become available, they may be installed at the factory or at a customer maintenance depot or they may be installed by
storage-system administrators at customer sites. For a dual-controller system, the following firmware-update scenarios are
supported:
● The administrator installs a new firmware version in one controller and wants that version to be transferred to the partner
controller.
● In a system that has been qualified with a specific firmware version, the administrator replaces one controller module and
wants the firmware version in the remaining controller to be transferred to the new controller (which might contain older or
newer firmware).
When a controller module is installed into an enclosure at the factory, the enclosure midplane serial number and firmware-update
timestamp are recorded for each firmware component in controller flash memory, and will not be erased when the configuration
is changed or is reset to defaults. These two pieces of data are not present in controller modules that are not factory-installed
and are used as replacements.
Updating controller firmware with the Partner Firmware Update (PFU) option enabled will ensure that the same firmware
version is installed in both controller modules. PFU uses the following algorithm to determine which controller module will update
its partner:
● If both controllers are running the same firmware version, no change is made.
● If the firmware in only one controller has the proper midplane serial number then the firmware, midplane serial number, and
attributes of that controller are transferred to the partner controller. Subsequently, the firmware update behavior for both
controllers depends on the system settings.
● If the firmware in both controllers has the proper midplane serial number then the firmware having the latest firmware-
update timestamp is transferred to the partner controller.
● If the firmware in neither controller has the proper midplane serial number, then the firmware version in controller A is
transferred to controller B.
NOTE:
Dell EMC recommends always updating controller firmware with the PFU option enabled unless otherwise directed
by Tech Support.
For information about the procedures to update firmware in controller modules, expansion modules, and disk drives, see
Updating firmware on page 62. That topic also describes how to use the activity progress interface to view detailed
information about the progress of a firmware-update operation.
About managed logs
As the storage system operates, it records diagnostic data in several types of log files. The size of any log file is limited, so
over time and during periods of high activity, these logs can fill up and begin overwriting their oldest data. The managed logs
feature allows log data to be transferred to a log-collection system, and store it for later retrieval before any data is lost. The
log-collection system is a host computer that is designated to receive the log data transferred from the storage system. The
transfer does not remove any data from the logs in the storage system. This feature is disabled by default.
The managed logs feature can be configured to operate in push mode or pull mode:
● In push mode, when log data has accumulated to a significant size, the storage system sends notifications with attached log
files via email to the log-collection system. The notification will specify the storage-system name, location, contact, and IP
address, and will contain a single log segment in a compressed zip file. The log segment will be uniquely named to indicate
the log-file type, the date and time of creation, and the storage system. This information will also be in the email subject line.
The file name format is logtype_yyyy_mm_dd__hh_mm_ss.zip.
● In pull mode, when log data has accumulated to a significant size, the system sends notifications via email, SMI-S, or SNMP
to the log-collection system, which can then use FTP or SFTP to transfer the appropriate logs from the storage system. The
notification will specify the storage-system name, location, contact, and IP address and the log-file type or region that needs
to be transferred.
The managed logs feature monitors the following controller-specific log files:
● Expander Controller (EC) log, which includes EC debug data, EC revisions, and PHY statistics
● Storage Controller (SC) debug log and controller event log
● SC crash logs, which include the SC boot log
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Getting started