HP 3PAR Upgrade Pre-Planning Guide

Observe the following general guidelines in respect to online HP 3PAR OS updates:
WARNING! All hosts must be compliant with the current applicable HP 3PAR host OS
implementation guides for the target HP 3PAR OS level. Hosts that do not comply completely with
the implementation guides may lose connectivity during the HP 3PAR OS upgrade.
• Hardware and configuration changes should not be performed on the HP 3PAR StoreServ
Storage during the update. For example, software operations (such as servicemag,
createvv, or use of the HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage tuner commands) and hardware
operations (such as adding or removing drives and cages) are prohibited during the online
update process. All logical disk growth operations for common provisioning groups continue
uninterrupted as under normal operation.
• No host or environment changes are allowed during an online upgrade (for example, rebooting,
applying patches, or rezoning switches). The upgrade software checks for the existence of
hosts before and after each step, and if host connections do not reappear after each step, the
upgrade process reverts to the original level.
• Any automated processes that communicate with the HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage management
interface (scripting) must be stopped before performing an online upgrade.
• Online upgrades should be scheduled and performed during periods of low I/O activity. As
system resources are placed offline to be upgraded, system utilization must be lower than
50% for each node and I/O port.
• If the CLI command takes more than 4 seconds to respond, check the DNS lookup speed. Use
the following command to verify performance:
ping –a <DNS_name>
where <DNS_name> is the DNS name of the HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage.
If the DNS lookup speed is slow, contact the system administrator to change the DNS
settings. DNS lookup can also be sped up by adding the HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage to the
local DNS mapping file. For example, on a Windows 32-bit OS, go to the following location
and add an entry there for the HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage.
c:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
After you save the file, the CLI command should respond normally.
Host Configuration Guidelines
Observe the following host configuration guidelines when planning an online HP 3PAR OS upgrade:
• Multipathing cabling must adhere to HP 3PAR configuration rules: each defined host must
have at least two operational paths attached to two adjacent nodes (i.e. even-numbered node,
followed by a consecutive odd-numbered node. Valid pairings are:.
◦ 0 & 1
◦ 2 & 3
Host Configuration Guidelines 7