IBM Support

Hitachi Data Systems VSP G Series and F Series storage attachment KnowledgeCenter - Errata

Preventive Service Planning


Abstract

This erratum should be used by anyone using the following IBM Virtualisation products to virtualise Hitachi Data Systems VSP G and F Series Storage

IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller,
IBM Storwize V5000
IBM Storwize V7000
IBM V7000 Unified
IBM FlashSystem V840
IBM FlashSystem V9000

Content


Configuring the VSP G or F Series Controllers.

This portion of the document covers the necessary configuration for using a Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) VSP G or F Series Controllers with an IBM SAN Volume Controller or Storwize cluster.

Supported models of VSP G or F Series Controllers

The following models are supported for use with SAN Volume Controller and Storwize

VSP G200
VSP G400
VSP G600
VSP G800
VSP G1000
VSP F400
VSP F600
VSP F800




For supported Hitachi data systems Firmware and supported versions of SAN Volume Controller and Storwize please visit the following URL

IBM System Storage Interoperation Center ( SSIC )

http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/support/storage/ssic/interoperability.wss

Concurrent maintenance on VSP G or F Series Controllers

Concurrent Firmware upgrades are supported as per VSP G or F Series Controller procedures.

VSP G or F Series Controller interface

This is the Hitachi Device Manager Storage Navigator
Users configure an VSP G or F Series Controllers via software installed on a GUI server
and accessed via a local web browser.
http://localhost/sanproject/index.do

Logical units and target ports on VSP G or F Series Controllers

LUNs

The VSP G or F Series Controllers has a maximum LUN size of 60TB.
A Volume is referenced by the LDEV ID or name.

VSP G or F Series Controllers can export 4096 LUNs to the SVC Controller (SVC limit).
Greater than 2TB LUNs are supported by SVC.





LUN IDs

VSP G or F Series Controllers will identify exported Logical Units through
SCSI Identification Descriptor type 3.
The 64-bit IEEE Registered Identifier (NAA=5) for the Logical Unit is in the form;
5-OUI-VSID .
The VSP G or F Series Controllers IEEE Company ID of 0060E8, the rest is a vendor specific ID.

lsmdisk mdisk0
id 0
name mdisk0
status online
mode managed
mdisk_grp_id 2
mdisk_grp_name G or F Series Controllers_int_storage_grp
capacity 200.0GB
quorum_index
block_size 512
controller_name G or F Series Controllers1a
ctrl_type 4
ctrl_WWNN 50060E8007E2CB00
controller_id 0
path_count 8
max_path_count 8
ctrl_LUN_# 0000000000000000
UID 60060e8007e2cb000030e2cb0000000a00000000000000000000000000000000
preferred_WWPN
active_WWPN 50060E8007E2CB21
fast_write_state empty
raid_status
raid_level
redundancy
strip_size
spare_goal
spare_protection_min
balanced
tier enterprise
slow_write_priority
fabric_type fc
site_id
site_name
easy_tier_load high
encrypt no


Configure Hitachi Logical Drives, Host Group and Paths.

The G or F Series Controller ports can be seen on the Hitachi controller by selecting the "Ports" tab from the "Ports/Host Groups" section of the Navigator,

Enable port security on each of the Port IDs to be used with SVC by ticking the appropriate Port Ids and selecting "Edit Port". The Connection Type should be set to "P-to-P".

To create a Host Group for the SVC select “Create Host Groups” from the “General Tasks” section of the navigator.

Select the Ports for the Host Group from the Available Ports table to which you want to direct i/o from the host and select “Add”. Select the Hosts from the Available Hosts table for the HBA WWNs for the host for which you want i/o to be directed to the G or F Series Controllers Ports selected above. Select “Finish” to create the Host Group.

Volumes and their corresponding Logical Units (LDEVS) are created, modified, or deleted through the browser. Volumes are formatted to all zeros upon creation.

Volumes are created as a Logical Device in a Parity group or a Dynamic Provisioning (DP) Pool.

Pools are created from Logical Devices that have no paths configured. See the Hitachi instruction for more detail.

To create a device that is to be presented to SVC select “Create LDEVs” from the “General Tasks” section of the navigator.

First select a Parity Group and then the capacity and number of devices to be created, then Add.

Select the Paths to be used and then Add.

Continue with “Next” and “Apply” “Finish” until you are shown a “Task” in progress.

The devices will require a completed format before further progress can be made.

Run detectmdisk on SVC (GUI or CLI)

Manage your new disks

To Modify, Resize, or destroy a LUN


*** Note: Make sure an mdisk is unmanaged (removed from any mdiskgroup) on the SVC Cluster before deleting the LUN on the VSP G or F Series Controller SAN storage system.

*** Note: Do not perform dynamic array expansion on LUNs that are in use by a SAN Volume Controller cluster. For this to be recognised by SVC the mdisk must
be first made unmanaged by migrating or deleting from the MDiskGroup.

LUN Presentation

LUNs are selected for export through the VSP G or F Series Controllers SAN storage system’s available FC ports. Configure these by Host Group.

See Configuration settings below.

Special LUNs

There are no special considerations to a Logical Unit numbering. LUN 0 may be exported where necessary.

Target Ports

A VSP G or F Series Controllers SAN storage system can have a total of 16 8Gbps FC ports.
Example;
lscontroller
id controller_name ctrl_s/n vendor_id product_id_low product_id_high
0 controller3 502029EB0001 4A HITACHI OPEN-V
1 controller2 502029EB0001 1A HITACHI OPEN-V
2 controller1 502029EB0001 2A HITACHI OPEN-V
3 controller0 502029EB0001 3A HITACHI OPEN-V

lscontroller 0
id 0
controller_name controller3
WWNN 50060E801329EB30
mdisk_link_count 15
max_mdisk_link_count 15
degraded no
vendor_id HITACHI
product_id_low OPEN-V
product_id_high
product_revision 7302
ctrl_s/n 502029EB0001 4A
allow_quorum yes <= (See section on Manual Quorum)
WWPN 50060E801329EB30
path_count 8
max_path_count 26

WWNN and WWPN in default settings appear identically.
VSP G or F Series Controllers WWNs look like this:

500060E8MMSSSSPP

50 - NAA format 5, Vendor responsible for address


0060E8 - ieee unique VSID of Hitachi Computer Products (America), inc.
MM - model range
SSSS - Hex for serial number
PP - Port Number

LU access model

All controllers are Active/Active. In all conditions, it is recommended to multipath across FC controller cards to avoid an outage from controller failure. All VSP G or F Series Controllers are equal in priority so there is no benefit to using an exclusive set for a specific LU.

LU grouping

LU grouping does not apply to HDS VSP G or F Series Controllers.

LU preferred access port

There are no preferred access ports on the VSP G or F Series Controllers as all ports are Active/Active across all controllers.

LUN Security

LUN Security enables LUN masking by the worldwide node name (WWNN) of the initiator port. This function is used for logical units (LUs) that are used by SAN Volume Controller clusters.


Detecting Ownership

Detecting Ownership does not apply to HDS VSP G or F Series Controllers.

Switch zoning limitations for G or F Series Controllers

There are no zoning limitations for G or F Series Controllers.
However as the VSP G or F Series Controllers can virtualise storage itself, “external storage ports” must be zoned separately from other storage that SVC can see, to prevent issues with SVC LUNS.

The VSP G or F Series Controllers present themselves by default to a SAN Volume Controller cluster as separate controllers for each port zoned to the SAN Volume Controller. For example, if one of these storage systems has 4 ports zoned to the SAN Volume Controller, each port appears as a separate controller rather than one controller with 4 WWPNs. In addition, a given logical unit (LU) must be mapped to the SAN Volume Controller through all controller ports zoned to the SAN Volume Controller using the same logical unit number (LUN).


Fabric zoning

Zoning a VSP G or F Series Controllers storage system to the SVC , each fabric zone should contain all the SVC backend ports and the VSP G or F Series Controllers port for robustness.

Target port sharing

The VSP G or F Series Controllers storage systems support LUN masking to enable multiple servers to access separate LUNs through a common controller port. There are no issues with mixing workloads or server types in this setup.



Host splitting
Avoid connecting a host to both a SAN Volume Controller cluster and a VSP G or F Series Controllers at the same time in-case of Multipathing driver incompatibility issues.

Controller splitting
SVC does not have to have exclusive access to the VSP G or F Series Controllers.
VSP G or F Series Controllers storage system LUNs that are mapped to the SAN Volume Controller cluster cannot be mapped to other hosts. LUNs that are not presented to SVC may be mapped to other hosts. SVC will not have visibility of performance issues caused by other accessing devices.

Configuration settings for VSP G or F Series Controllers storage system

The browser access enables the setup of the VSP G or F Series Controllers storage system LUNs and export to the SAN Volume Controller cluster. A LUN is required to be presented to SVC before SVC will detect the controller.

1. Using the “Hitachi Device Manager Storage Navigator”
2. Select “Ports/Host Groups”
3. Select “Host Groups” on the tab menu
4. Select the relevant Ports ID's relating to SVC Host Group
5. Click “edit host group” under more
6. Use Host Mode; 00 [standard]
7. For Manual Quorum support these Host Mode Options are required.
8. Enable option 39 “Change the nexus specified in the SCSI Target Reset”
9. Enable option 96 – unnamed

Quorum disks on VSP G or F Series Controllers

The SAN volume Controller cluster selects disks that are presented by the VSP G or F Series Controllers storage system as quorum disks. To maintain availability with the cluster, ideally each quorum disk should reside on a separate disk subsystem.
To enable Quorum on the controller use the SVC CLI.

[11:48:58]:~ # chcontroller -h
chcontroller
Syntax
>>- chcontroller -- --+---------------------+-- ---------------->
'- -name -- new_name -'
>--+-------------------------+--+- controller_id ---+----------><
'- -allowquorum --+-yes-+-' '- controller_name -' '-no--'
For more details type 'help chcontroller'.

Note; the HM and HMO options

Clearing SCSI reservations and registrations

The option is not available on the browser.
Note; this should never be done, LUNs must be exclusive to SVC.

Copy functions for VSP G or F Series Controllers storage system

The VSP G or F Series Controllers copy/replicate/snapshot features are not supported under SVC.

VSP G or F Series Controllers Virtualization

The VSP G or F Series Controllers can be used to virtualise external storage (e.g SVC).

The Controllers that G or F Series Controllers can virtualise are listed in column 1 of http://www.hds.com/products/storage-systems/specifications/supported-external-storage.html

To virtualise a SVC Controller for G or F Series Controllers, for each fabric, create a zone containing the WWPNs of the ports on the G or F Series Controllers which will be used to access the external storage and the WWPNs of the nodes of the SVC controller.

From the SVC controller.

lshbaportcandidate should give a list of the ports on the G or F Series Controllers contained in the zones created above.

Create a host for the ports listed and map the vdisks for G or F Series Controllers virtualising to it.

mkhost -name "G or F Series Controller model" -fcwwpn 50060E8007E2CB31:50060E8007E2CB21:50060E8007E2CB11:50060E8007E2CB41

mkvdiskhostmap -host "G or F Series Controllers" vdisk0

From the G or F Series Controller

set the Port Attribute for the G or F Series Controller ports to be used for the External Storage to "External" as specified in the "Setting port attributes on the local system" section of http://www.hds.com/assets/pdf/virtual-storage-platform-G or F Series Controllers-hitachi-universal-volume-manager-user-guide-80-01-2x.pdf.

Then follow the instructions in the "Mapping an external volume" section of the same document to make the Storage created on the SVC Controller available to G or F Series Controllers.

Create a pool of the External Volumes and map the Virtual Volumes to the Host Groups as you would for an internal G or F Series Controller storage.

If you expand the capacity of the External Storage, G or F Series Controllers will not automatically report the new capacity, you need to disconnect the External Storage, delete it and then remap it to get G or F Series Controllers to display the updated value.

If you delete External Volumes which are mapped to the G or F Series Controllers, remove them from the G or F Series Controllers before removing them from the External system, otherwise G or F Series Controllers will report the External Volumes as Blocked.

Note (as advised); To resolve this, when Deleting the External Volumes, select the Yes radio button which specifies that the External Volumes should be forcibly deleted.

Delete the Virtual Volumes from the relevant pool first and then delete the Pool Volumes. The LDEVs from the Pool Volumes can become “Blocked” and require a format them to make them available again, which may take some time.

When you have formatted the blocked LDEVs, you can disconnect the External Volumes, delete them, then you can remove the host mappings for the External Volumes from the G or F Series Controllers in SVC and delete them
























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Document Information

Modified date:
17 June 2018

UID

ssg1S1005455