HP VMA SAN Gateway for VMA-series Memory Arrays Release Notes - December 2012

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HP VMA SAN Gateway

for VMA-series Memory Arrays

Release Notes – Dec 2012 – Software OE version G5.5.1

Table of contents

Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 3

Features .......................................................................................................................................... 3

VMA features not initially supported by HP ............................................................................................. 4

Documentation location ........................................................................................................................ 5

Setup & configuration of a standalone VMA SAN Gateway ..................................................................... 5

VMA SAN Gateway hardware configuration ...................................................................................... 5

VMA SAN Gateway software configuration ........................................................................................ 8

SAN connectivity with the VMA SAN Gateway ................................................................................... 9

Configuring and presenting LUNs to connected host servers ................................................................ 10

Setup & configuration of a redundant VMA SAN Gateway pair .............................................................. 10

HP supported host connectivity with VMA SAN Gateway software OE version G5.5.1 .............................. 11

Host configuration support matrix ..................................................................................................... 11

Additional platform/OS specific considerations ................................................................................. 15

Supported web browsers with vSHARE GUI .......................................................................................... 18

VMA SAN Gateway: general recommendations and limitations .............................................................. 18

Alignment of data transfer I/O block sizes ........................................................................................ 18

Data layout structure alignment on VMA Array LUNs .......................................................................... 19

ext2 filesystem is not supported ........................................................................................................ 19

Tune application to issue I/Os which are multiple of 4KB ................................................................... 19

Create multiple LUNs for parallelization of I/O for applications .......................................................... 19

LUN 0 of the VMA SAN Gateway ................................................................................................... 19

Currently only 512B sectors are supported ........................................................................................ 19

Tune OS I/O queue depth settings for optimal performance ................................................................ 20

Increased I/O traffic from server reboot might cause reported path offline ............................................ 20

VMA SAN Gateway G5.5.1 SNMP events are not integrated with HP System Insight Manager (SIM) ...... 20

VMA v-commands available with the Gateway CLI ............................................................................. 20

Setting date and time ..................................................................................................................... 20

CLI commands are case sensitive ..................................................................................................... 21

Backing up VMA SAN Gateway configuration for recovery .................................................................... 21

Data backup ..................................................................................................................................... 21

Open known problems: ...................................................................................................................... 21

Open source code availability ............................................................................................................. 22

For HP Technical Support: ................................................................................................................... 22

In the United States ........................................................................................................................ 22

In other locations ........................................................................................................................... 22

For VMA firmware downloads: ........................................................................................................... 22

Summary of content (23 pages)

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HP VMA SAN Gateway for VMA-series Memory Arrays Release Notes – Dec 2012 – Software OE version G5.5.1 Table of contents Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 3 Features .......................................................................................................................................... 3 VMA features not initially supported by HP ..............................................
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For more information ..........................................................................................................................
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Introduction The VMA SAN Gateway provides additional scale of connectivity and availability for connecting host servers using industry standard Fibre Channel to VMA-series Memory Arrays. The VMA SAN Gateway acts as a storage controller that provides FC connectivity. The VMA SAN Gateway requires a FC SAN switch between the gateway and the connecting servers.
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Figure 1: VMA SAN Gateway G7 – front view Figure 2: VMA SAN Gateway Gen8 – front view VMA features not initially supported by HP HP OEMs the VMA-series memory arrays (VMA) and vSHARE OE from Violin Memory. Not all features and configurations possible with the VMA-series arrays and VMA SAN gateway have been fully tested to the expected level from HP and are considered unsupported until a later time.
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Documentation location Applicable documentation for the HP VMA SAN Gateway and VMA-series Memory Arrays can be found at www.hp.com/go/vma-docs Some important documents for this release are listed below: • • • • • • HP VMA SAN Gateway Installation and Configuration Guide For Release G5.5.1 – AM4569025A HP VMA SAN Gateway User’s Guide For Release G5.5.
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Figure 2: VMA SAN Gateway G7 – back view (P/N AM465A) Figure : VMA SAN Gateway Gen8 – back view (P/N A0R65A) The FC HBA ports in the VMA SAN Gateway act as storage target ports which are connected to a FC SAN Switch to provide host initiator port connectivity. The VMA SAN Gateway is only supported with SAN Fabric attach; FC direct attach from a server FC port to a FC port on the gateway is not supported.
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light (about a minute) and then power up the VMA SAN Gateway. If the VMA SAN Gateway is powered up before the VMA Array, the VMA array may not identify and be discovered by the VMA SAN Gateway. Only SAN attach is supported, meaning that connections from host servers to the SAN Gateway must connect through a Fibre Channel SAN switch; direct FC attach from host server to SAN Gateway is not supported.
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Figure : Correct connections for two VMA-series Memory Arrays to one VMA SAN Gateway VMA SAN Gateway software configuration Please take time to review the HP VMA SAN Gateway Installation and User Guide to become familiar with the available commands and features. On first login to the VMA SAN Gateway, you will be prompted if you want to run the setup wizard.
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The vCLUSTER feature allowing master/secondary relationship of gateways for single point of management and monitoring member gateway nodes is used for management of redundant VMA SAN Gateway pairs, but this multi-gateway management feature is not the same as redundant gateway pairs. In order to correctly configure the VMA SAN Gateway as a ‘standalone gateway’, follow the procedures for Configuring the Master Memory Gateway in Chapter 3 of the HP VMA SAN Gateway Installation and User Guide.
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present if ordered as add-on components, P/N AJ764A. As mentioned previously and shown in Figures 4 and 5, it is recommended to have only two HBAs, four target ports, per connected VMA array. Be sure to retrieve the HBA port SFPs from the spare parts bag shipped in the box with the VMA SAN Gateway and insert them into the HBA ports.
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Figure : Supported Redundant Pair VMA SAN Gateway Configurations Redundant VMA SAN Gateway Pair with one VMA Array Redundant VMA SAN Gateway Pair with two VMA Arrays Please fully review the ‘Configuring a Redundant Pair of VMA SAN Gateways - Process Guide’ (P/N AM456-9023A) before attempting to setup a redundant gateway pair. For connection of dually connected VMA Arrays to redundant VMA SAN Gateways, you will need two VMA PCIe Cables per VMA Array to be connected; one to connect to each gateway.
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• • • • • • • • • • • • Integrity BL8x0c i2 server blades running HP-UX 11i v3 fusion 1209 or newer Integrity Superdome 2 running HP-UX 11i v3 fusion 1209 or newer ProLiant DL980 G7 running RHEL 5.8, RHEL 6.2 ProLiant DL980 G7 running OL 5.8 ProLiant DL980 G7 running SLES 11 SP2 ProLiant DL980 G7 running Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 ProLiant DL580 G7 running RHEL 6.2 ProLiant DL580 G7 running OL5.8 ProLiant DL580 G7 running Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 ProLiant BL680 G7 running RHEL 6.
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Table 2. VMA SAN Gateway version G5.5.1 support matrix. Server Platform Operati ng System & Version Platform Firmware FC HBAs FC Driver Version FC SAN Switch es BL8x0c i2 HP-UX 11i v3 update 10 (fusion 1203) or newer HP-UX 11i v3 update 10 (fusion 1203) or newer RHEL 5.8, 6.2 K26.
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DL580 G7** OL 5.8 (UEK, RHCK) BIOS 2012.08.04 DL580 G7** Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 BIOS 2012.08.04 RHEL 6.2 2012.08.04 26 Oct 2012 BL680 G7 AJ762A, AJ763A, AJ764A, AK344A AJ762A, AJ763A, AJ764A, AK344A 451871-B21, 456972-B21 8.3.5.48.2p Qlogic RHEL5.8: 8.03.07.09.05.08-k Emulex RHEL5.8: 8.2.0.108.4p Qlogic RHEL6.2: 8.03.07.05.06.2-k Emulex RHEL6.2: 8.3.5.45.2p Included in distro: Qlogic SLES11SP2: 8.03.07.07-k Emulex SLES11SP2: 8.3.5.48.2p Qlogic RHEL5.8: 8.03.07.09.05.08-k Emulex RHEL5.8: 8.2.
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BL680 G7 Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 2012.08.04 26 Oct 2012 451871-B21, 456972-B21 7.2.70.18 for AJ762A & B-Series AJ763A C-Series 9.1.9.49 for AJ764A & AK344A H-Series ** It is highly recommend that all FC HBAs used in a single DL980, DL580, BL680 be of same original vendor, either all Q-Logic or all Emulex, to avoid software driver co-existence issues.
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Use the following table to determine appropriate TPCC settings with HP-UX 11i v3 for your environment: Table 3. HP-UX 11i v3 TPCC queue depth values. IF THEN TPCC Setting is I/Os are 4KB aligned and < 256KB 1024 / number of servers* I/Os are 4KB aligned and > 256KB 512 / number of servers* I/Os are NON-4KB aligned and < 256KB 512 / number of servers* I/Os are NON-4KB aligned and > 256KB 256 / number of servers* * where servers can be a whole physical server or a partition.
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Queue-Depth Settings for RHEL 5.8, 6.2, SLES 11 SP2 and OL 5.8 The HBA drivers used with Linux have default LUN level queue depth values of 30 or 32 depending upon the HBA vendor. In many cases this default value will provide good results. However in cases where a large number of LUNs are used with a large number of server FC initiator ports, the resulting I/O load could cause Queue-Full conditions and I/O retries leading to non-optimal performance.
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2. Under the MPIO Devices tab, verify that there is a Device Hardware ID entry for ‘VIOLIN SAN ARRAY ‘ in the list of IDs. There will be a generic Device Hardware Id template entry, ‘Vendor8 Product 16’ which is only an example entry and does not bind to any storage. It is okay to leave this template entry in the list. 3. Only if an entry is not in the Device Hardware ID table for ‘VIOLIN SAN ARRAY mpclaim function to re-identify devices for MPIO management.
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4KB might suffer a performance impact. Write performance is more seriously affected by non-4KB alignment. For example, if a user application writes 512 bytes starting at the last 256 bytes of a 4K page, the result on hardware would be two 4K read-modify-write updates. In order to achieve optimal throughput and performance with the VMA-series Memory Arrays, care should be given to tuning the intended application, data layout structures on the array, and the connected host server.
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Tune OS I/O queue depth settings for optimal performance Refer to and follow the guidelines for setting OS specific I/O queue depth for I/O to the VMA SAN Gateway.
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CLI commands are case sensitive All CLI commands are case sensitive and usually are all lower case. CLI commands are documented in appendices of the user manuals. Backing up VMA SAN Gateway configuration for recovery For disaster recovery of the VMA SAN Gateway configuration file, you can create a copy of the gateway configuration file and upload it to a production or maintenance server to be included in the regular data backup of that server.
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At the support page, click ‘Cross operating system (BIOS, Firmware, Diagnostics, etc.)’ for operating system independent support downloads. Open source code availability The specially developed VMA SAN Gateway OE version G5.5.1 which is integrated with the VMA SAN Gateway appliance includes some open source components. Source code for these open source components is available on the HP Business Support Center – Driver and Software Download web page for the VMA SAN Gateway (P/N AM465A) at: http://h20565.
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For more information To read more about the HP VMA-series Memory Arrays and VMA SAN Gateway, go to: www.hp.com/go/vma Share with colleagues © Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty.