NEC NEC Storage PathManager 3.1, User Manual

Page 1: ...NEC Storage Software NEC Storage PathManager User s Manual Windows version IS201 5E ...

Page 2: ...poration 2003 2004 No part of the contents of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without permission of NEC Corporation The contents of this book may be modified without notice in the future ...

Page 3: ...orted by the following software NEC Storage PathManager 3 1 Enterprise for Windows NEC Storage PathManager 3 1 Standard for Windows 2 Microsoft R Windows R and Windows NT R are registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries 3 If you have any comments or requests regarding this manual or if the content of this manual requires further clarificat...

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Page 5: ... Setup II 2 PART III FUNCTIONS III 1 Chapter 3 Functions of NEC Storage PathManager III 2 3 1 Path state display III 2 3 2 Path control III 7 3 3 Load balancing III 12 3 4 Cluster liaison III 15 3 5 Path patrol III 16 3 6 Failure avoidance and failure recovery III 20 3 7 Log extraction III 24 3 8 Message ESMPRO liaison III 27 PART IV OPERATION IV 1 Chapter 4 Operating NEC Storage PathManager IV 2 ...

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Page 7: ...Part I Overv view P Pa ar rt t I I O Ov ve er rvi ie ew w ...

Page 8: ...nd and used so far in order to reduce failure occurrence in storage units and smoothly recover from failures Examples include RAIDs hot spares and replications These functions are also provided in NEC Storage to achieve high availability Unfortunately these solutions are only effective for media errors If failures occur in host bus adapters controllers or physical paths such as fibre channel cable...

Page 9: ... failover function for nodes in cluster systems in order to avoid path failures 1 2 C Configuration of NEC Storage PathManager 1 1 2 2 Co on nf fi ig gu ur ra at ti io on n o of f N NE EC C S St to or ra ag ge e P Pa at th hM Ma an na ag ge er r NEC Storage PathManager operates on servers such as Express5800 and monitors the paths connected by FC cables between the HBA host bus adapter at the serv...

Page 10: ...pscmd HP HP HP Server iStorage NEC Storage PathManager driver NEC Storage command Operation Figure 1 1 Configuration of NEC Storage PathManager 1 3 System configuration 1 1 3 3 S Sy ys st te em m c co on nf fi ig gu ur ra at ti io on n A basic configuration example of a system to which NEC Storage PathManager is installed will be illustrated below 1 3 1 S Single server configuration 1 1 3 3 1 1 Si...

Page 11: ...r ra at ti io on n In this system multiple servers are directly connected to NEC Storage This system configuration is used when multiple servers having different tasks share a relatively large NEC Storage Exclusive control such as access control is necessary among logical units used by respective servers Express5800 StoragePathSavior Express5800 NEC Storage Storage PathManager Storage PathManager ...

Page 12: ...t ti io on n Below is an example of a cluster system configuration There are FC switches between the server and NEC Storage so that multiple servers will make the same logical unit visible NEC Storage Express5800 StoragePathSavior Express5800 StoragePathSavior Storage PathManager Storage PathManager Figure 1 4 Cluster configuration I 6 ...

Page 13: ...Part II Installation P Pa ar rt t I II I I In ns st ta al ll la at ti io on n ...

Page 14: ... 23 MB HBA Host bus adapter specified by NEC Storage NEC Storage 4000 series 3000 series 2800 series 2000 series 1000 series 100 series 2800 series 2000 series 1000 series 100 series 1 Storage PathManager on IA64 servers does not support NEC Storage S100 series 2 2 Setup 2 2 2 2 S Se et tu up p The Setup CD is used to install uninstall NEC Storage PathManager The Setup CD allows the following acti...

Page 15: ...nd NEC Storage may result in fatal damage to file systems 3 Follow the HBA setup procedure manual to set up the FibreChannel driver 4 Set the cross call of NEC Storage to On For settings of the cross call refer to the NEC Storage manual 5 If Alert Manager Main Service is active temporarily stop the service and then set up NEC Storage PathManager in order to ensure successful registration of liaiso...

Page 16: ...the installation is complete connect NEC Storage and the server used in installation if you are requested to reboot the system first reboot the system and then make the above connection For further information regarding installation procedures refer to the Storage PathManager Installation Guide 2 2 3 U Uninstallation 2 2 2 2 3 3 Un ni in ns st ta al ll la at ti io on n Use the Setup CD and follow ...

Page 17: ... Storage PathManager 1 Completely disconnect the server and NEC Storage while the server is turned off 2 Turn the server on and log in as an administrative user 3 Insert the Setup CD into the CD drive unit 4 Follow the instructions of the installer to upgrade NEC Storage PathManager If the previous version of NEC Storage PathManager and EXPRESSCLUSTER CLUSTERPRO were used in combination the X CALL...

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Page 19: ...Part III Functions P Pa ar rt t I II II I F Fu un nc ct ti io on ns s ...

Page 20: ...failed paths when failures occur uses the failover function to use alternative paths and uses the failback function at the time of failure recovery 7 Log extraction This function outputs operation information and failure information to system log files and dedicated log files as operation histories 8 Message ESMPRO liaison This function issues notifications to operators as performance or failure i...

Page 21: ...this path is not in effect 4 Failed This is the path that is unavailable due to failures Active In use Failures Unavailable Available Standby Figure 3 1 State transition 3 1 2 P Pa a ath list display 3 3 1 1 2 2 P t th h l li is st t d di is sp pl la ay y Use the getlun option of the spscmd to check the state of all paths that are managed by NEC Storage PathManager This will allow you to check whi...

Page 22: ...0 only supports round robin as a type of dynamic load balancing Other logical unit numbers are surrounded by the symbol 2 Path state This shows the state of each path In use This is the path that is currently being used X Failed This path is not used due to failures Standby This path is on standby No symbol Active This path is active 3 Priority This shows priorities given to the paths Priority is ...

Page 23: ...calUnit 0 0 Priority 2 PathNumber 4 0 0 0 1 Priority 1 PathNumber 5 0 1 0 C C spscmd getlun LogicalUnit 0 0 Priority 1 PathNumber 5 0 1 0 C Disconnection occurs in the path 4 0 0 0 The path information disappears 3 1 3 D Detailed path list display 3 3 1 1 3 3 De et ta ai il le ed d p pa at th h l li is st t d di is sp pl la ay y Use the getlun option of the spscmd with the v option to see detailed...

Page 24: ... balancing LogicalDiskNumber number given to a logical disk ProductId product ID of NEC Storage SerialNumber serial number given to an NEC Storage unit PortNumber number given to a port PathId ID of a path TargetId ID of a target for SCSI Lun number given to a logical unit BusNumber PCI bus number of an HBA SlotNumber PCI device number of an HBA Wwpn WWpn World Wide port name 3 1 4 S Sorted path l...

Page 25: ...e PathManager Use an spscmd to use this function Path priority which becomes important when controlling the paths will be described first Then spscmd options to be used in path control will be described 3 2 1 P Pa a ath priority 3 3 2 2 1 1 P t th h p pr ri io or ri it ty y Path priority is assigned to each path in each logical unit and is used to specify the order of paths to be used in the respe...

Page 26: ...spscmd to temporarily disable priority The state of a path with deactivated priority will turn from In use or Active to Standby Standby In use Failures Unavailable Available notavail Active Figure 3 2 notavail option In the following example priority of the path 4 0 0 0 has been deactivated After executing the notavail option the path 4 0 0 0 will have the symbol which stands for a standby state A...

Page 27: ...se of failures in all the other paths In this case the priority of this path will be enabled before it is used The following figure shows the priority relationship between normal paths which are the paths with enabled priority and paths with disabled priority 254 Enabled 1 Enabled 254 Disabled 1 Disabled Priority High Low Figure 3 3 Priority size relationship Use the avail option of the spscmd to ...

Page 28: ...ority of the specified path and by switching the priorities of the specified path and the currently used path Note that the priorities will not be switched if the specified path becomes the path to be used only by enabling its priority The priority of the path specified by the path option will become enabled even if the priority of the currently used path is disabled meaning that there is no path ...

Page 29: ...r ri io or ri it ti ie es s Use the swap option of the spscmd to switch the orders of paths to be used The swap option switches priorities of two specified paths Note that the enabled disabled status of the priorities will not be switched This option is mainly used to change priorities between paths that are not being used However currently used paths can also be specified C spscmd getlun LogicalU...

Page 30: ...the priority of the path that has failed back will be changed refer to 4 1 2 Initial settings As described above the priority option must be used with much caution Unless it is absolutely necessary use the path option or the swap option instead 3 3 Load bal lancing 3 3 3 3 L Lo oa ad d b ba ala an nc ci in ng g This function distributes I O loads to available paths that are managed by NEC Storage ...

Page 31: ... 1 0 LogicalUnit 1 0 Priority 2 PathNumber 4 0 0 1 1 Priority 1 PathNumber 5 0 1 1 C In this example path 0 path number 4 0 0 x will be used when accessing logical units 0 and 1 Once the settings for static load balancing are made path 0 will be used to access logical unit 0 and path 1 will be used to access logical unit 1 C spscmd path 5 0 1 1 C spscmd getlun LogicalUnit 0 0 Priority 2 PathNumber...

Page 32: ...de option of the spscmd to make settings for dynamic load balancing The following image shows an example C spscmd getlun LogicalUnit 0 0 Priority 2 PathNumber 4 0 0 0 1 Priority 1 PathNumber 5 0 1 0 C spscmd lbmode 4 0 0 0 1 C spscmd getlun LogicalUnit 0 round robin 0 Priority 2 PathNumber 4 0 0 0 1 Priority 1 PathNumber 5 0 1 0 C In this example the path to logical unit 0 which exists in NEC Stor...

Page 33: ...thManager first attempts to switch paths If this does not work then the cluster control program will switch nodes NEC Storage PathManager can be used in EXPRESSCLUSTER CLUSTERPRO and MSCS Microsoft cluster system environments 3 4 1 E EXPRES CLUSTER CLUSTERPRO liaison 3 3 4 4 1 1 EX XP PR RE ES SS S SC CL LU US ST TE ER R C CL LU US ST TE ER RP PR RO O l li ia ai is so on n This function allows NEC...

Page 34: ...he health check function paths that are available for use are monitored and the failover function is automatically activated in case of failures In the recovery check function paths that are not used due to failures are monitored and the failback function is automatically activated at the time of failure recovery The path patrol service and the NEC Storage PathManager driver allow execution of the...

Page 35: ...on is used mainly to monitor failures in alternative paths in environments except for those in which dynamic load balancing is conducted Standby In use Failures Unavailable Available Active Figure 3 7 Failover as a result of health check 3 5 2 R Recovery check 3 3 5 5 2 2 Re ec co ov ve er ry y c ch he ec ck k This function detects paths that recovered from failures and makes them fail back by per...

Page 36: ... 2 C spscmd getwatcher Health check Enable 1 Request interval 30 sec 2 C Four numbers with a colon in between are specified as arguments of the setwatcher option They correspond to respective parameters displayed in the getwatcher option 1 Health check Recovery check This shows the status of the health check function and the recovery check function In the getwatcher option Enable functions are ava...

Page 37: ...conds This parameter is not for Windows Server 2003 4 Timeout duration This refers to the timeout duration for monitoring I O NEC Storage PathManager will decide that failures have occurred if monitoring I O is not complete within the timeout duration default 120 unit seconds This parameter is not for Windows Server 2003 Parameters of arguments specified in the setwatcher option can be omitted lik...

Page 38: ...ecute failover so that alternative paths will be used and execute failback at the time of failure recovery The abovementioned path patrol executes failover and failback by using these functions 3 6 1 F Failover and failback 3 3 6 6 1 1 Fa ai il lo ov ve er r a an nd d f fa ai il lb ba ac ck k When failures occur in the paths NEC Storage PathManager automatically switches paths to be used from fail...

Page 39: ...Path1 Failures Recovery Figure 3 9 Failover left and failback right Standby In use Failures Unavailavle Available Active Figure 3 10 Failover as a result of failure avoidance Standby In use Failures Unavailable Available Active Figure 3 11 Failback as a result of failure recovery III 21 ...

Page 40: ...mes disabled Select standby failback when you do not wish to have any extra path switching at the time of failback If this type of failback is selected it is necessary to manually enable the path priority after failback is complete Use the setfbmode option of the spscmd to select the type of failback C spscmd setfbmode active C spscmd getfbmode Failback Active C In this example active failback is ...

Page 41: ...C spscmd failback 4 0 0 0 C spscmd getlun LogicalUnit 0 0 Priority 2 PathNumber 4 0 0 0 1 Priority 1 PathNumber 5 0 1 0 C The failback option executes failback targeting the specified paths Meanwhile the failbackall option executes failback targeting all failed paths In both cases failback will be unsuccessful for the paths yet to be recovered C spscmd getlun LogicalUnit 0 X 0 Priority 2 PathNumbe...

Page 42: ...ager and information regarding operation of NEC Storage PathManager and failed I O are recorded in the SPS logs SPS logs are stored in a log storage folder installation directory Log and consist of a currently used log file and the previous log file At the time of program installation only the currently used log file exists The currently used log file is named spsevent log and stores logs up to th...

Page 43: ...old will be deleted Then spsevent log becomes spsevent log old A new spsevent log is created and logs will be stored in this file spsevent log spsevent log Log storage folder spsevent log old spsevent log old The file name is changed and a new one is created The file is deleted Figure 3 9 Storing SPS logs 3 The above actions will be repeated every time the log file becomes full As a result only th...

Page 44: ...o Path Priority was changed successfully 1 Date Time 2 266 Failed to change Priority Err Failed to change Path Priority 1 Date Time 2 267 Start changing LBMode Info Start changing LoadBalancing Mode 1 Date Time 2 268 LBMode was changed Info LoadBalancing Mode was changed successfully 1 Date Time 2 269 Failed to change LBMode Info Failed to change LoadBalancing Mode 1 Date Time 2 270 Path error Inf...

Page 45: ...es 262 Failback failed Err No Yes 263 Failback completed Info No Yes 264 Start Changing priority Info No Yes 265 Changing Priority was done Info No Yes 266 Failed to change Priority Err No Yes 267 Start changing LBMode Info No Yes 268 LBMode was changed Info No Yes 269 Failed to change LBMode Info No Yes 270 Path error Info No Yes 271 Path error Info No Yes 272 AFB started Info No Yes 273 AFB was ...

Page 46: ... NVBASE AlertViewer AlertType StoragePath WavDefault REG_SZ Default wav AniDefault REG_SZ Default bmp Image REG_SZ Default bmp SmallImage REG_SZ Default bmp 2 Set the permissions shown below HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE NEC NVBASE AlertViewer AlertType StoragePath Administrators Full Control Everyone Read SYSTEM Full Control ESMPRO User Group Full Control You can find ESMPRO User Group in the follo...

Page 47: ...Part IV Operation P Pa ar rt t I IV V O Op pe er ra at ti io on n ...

Page 48: ...rage PathManager automatically groups paths for each logical unit and conceals the paths in applications to make only one path visible Use an spscmd to check current NEC Storage PathManager operation status such as path state display and path control Refer to Chapter 3 Functions of NEC Storage PathManager for the spscmd 4 1 2 C Checking operation stat tus 4 4 1 1 2 2 Ch he ec ck ki in ng g o op pe...

Page 49: ...the spscmd to return the result If only one path is displayed in the getlun option of the spscmd first refer to 4 2 1 FAQs and troubleshooting to see if solutions can be found before making inquiries 4 1 3 I Initial settings 4 4 1 1 3 3 In ni it ti ia al l s se et tt ti in ng gs s 1 Priority NEC Storage PathManager determines the initial value of the priority in the following ways 1 When a new pat...

Page 50: ...logical unit they will be sequentially allocated with priority that goes up by 1 for each path Their priorities will be disabled Once priority is allocated after the system is rebooted the same priority will be allocated unless changes are made The following image shows an example of path state immediately after installation of NEC Storage PathManager C spscmd getlun LogicalUnit 0 0 Priority 1 Pat...

Page 51: ...r installing the HBA driver make sure to check the settings for priority and make settings again as needed 2 Failback method When NEC Storage PathManager is installed the failback method is set to standby failback This is based on a policy that once failures occur in a path that path should not be used until its complete recovery is confirmed This setting can avoid unnecessary switching of paths d...

Page 52: ...s also experiencing failures then a path having the third highest priority will become the next candidate It may seem rare that more than two paths experience failures at the same time however this can happen depending on system configuration In the figure below the system has a configuration with four paths and two FC switches and path priorities are set to 4 3 2 and 1 to respective paths from le...

Page 53: ...torage PathManager Figure 4 1 Setting priority 1 In the next figure path priorities are set to 4 2 3 and 1 from left to right In this case only one execution of failover is necessary to determine which path is going to be used next in the case of failures in a FC switch or failures in the NEC Storage controller This setting is effective when conducting dynamic load balancing Since paths having pri...

Page 54: ...Chapter 4 Operating NEC Storage PathManager Express5800 NEC Storage StoragePathSavior Priority 4 2 3 1 Storage PathManager Figure 4 2 Setting priority 2 IV 8 ...

Page 55: ... HBA manual for detailed information on the Emulex Configuration Tool Is NEC Storage connected with the server Confirm the connection between NEC Storage and the server When fibre channel fabrics exist between NEC Storage and the server confirm also that those fabrics are turned on Is the configuration of Access Control of NEC Storage correctly set Confirm the configuration of Access Control of NE...

Page 56: ...e tree 3 Open Disk drives 4 Take a screen shot 3 Logical drive information Use Disk Management of Windows to collect logical drive information bitmap image 1 Open Start Settings Control Panel Administrative tools Computer Management 2 Select Disk Management from the tree 3 Take a screen shot 4 Event logs Collect event logs system and application from Event Viewer of Windows 1 Open Start Settings C...

Page 57: ...d Prompt 2 Using the command prompt execute the following command C spscmd getlun v file name Path information will be saved in a file specified in File Name 7 Registry Use Registry Editor of Windows to collect registry information HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SYSTEM 1 Activate Start Run 2 Input regedt32 in Open and click OK 3 Select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SYSTEM 4 Select Registry Save Subtree As from the menu ...

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Page 59: ...Ap ppendix A App pe en nd di ix x ...

Page 60: ...de spscmd notavail path_number spscmd path path_number spscmd priority path_number priority spscmd setfbmode state spscmd setmscsmode state spscmd setwatcher param spscmd swap path_number1 path_number2 Description It is used to make settings for NEC Storage PathManager and to display its status Options spscmd recognizes the following options and arguments spscmd avail path_number It enables priori...

Page 61: ...of their number For other logical units the paths will be displayed in the order of priority If not specifically set this display order will be applied s1 Paths will be displayed in the order of their number s2 Paths will be displayed in the order of priority This function is not for Windows Server 2003 spscmd getmode It displays status of the following settings 1 Types of NEC Storage PathManager ...

Page 62: ... by path_number mode will set dynamic load balancing Mode 0 Dynamic load balancing will not be executed no load balancing will be executed or static load balancing will be executed Mode 1 Dynamic load balancing will be executed in the round robin method spscmd notavail path_number It disables the priority of the path specified by path_number spscmd path path_number It disables the priority of the ...

Page 63: ...sabled 2 health check disabled recovery check enabled 3 health check enabled recovery check enabled 2 Request interval Interval for issuing monitoring requests in seconds 3 Threshold Duration of time that a path has not been used in seconds This information is necessary for issuance of monitoring I O 4 Timeout duration Duration before timeout for monitoring I O in seconds Recovery check Threshold ...

Page 64: ... 2 III 27 Disk drive information IV 9 monitoring I O III 19 dynamic load balancing III 4 III 7 III 14 MSCS II 4 III 15 E MSCS liaison III 15 IV 5 Multiple server configuration I 5 ESMPRO liaison III 2 III 27 ESMPRO AlertManager II 3 N event log I 4 III 24 III 26 IV 10 notavail III 8 EXPRESSCLUSTER II 4 EXPRESSCLUSTER CLUSTERPRO liaison III 15 O F Operation command I 3 Overview of NEC Storage PathM...

Page 65: ...8 Setup II 2 setwatcher III 18 III 19 Single server configuration I 4 SlotNumber III 6 Sorted path list display III 6 SPS log III 24 IV 10 spscmd I 3 2 spsevent log III 24 Standby III 3 III 4 III 8 standby failback III 17 III 22 IV 5 Starting operation IV 2 State III 6 state of paths III 3 State transition III 3 Static load balancing III 12 Storage PathManager driver I 3 III 16 Support for cluster...