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Enthusiast
Enthusiast

MSA1000 Active/Active Firmware is out..

Hi Folks -

I know a number of you out there use the HP MSA1000 in some capacity, so I figured I'd pass along the word that the Active/Active firmware has FINALLY been released:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=12...

Anyone have a spare unit to test this with? Smiley Happy

-Craig

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30 Replies
ErMaC1
Expert
Expert

Similarly the MSA1500 also supports hte new firmware. However, considering we just moved to 6.86 on ours I doubt we'll be upgrading anytime soon.

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FrankHanhart
Contributor
Contributor

Hi there,

I stumbled across the new firmware docs by accident, and are really looking forward to finally run active/active on the MSA1000.... Now, I DO have a spare MSA1000, but not a spare 2/8 switch and controller Smiley Happy

I've read the Migrating to active/active controllers in VMWare doc, and it all sounds soooo simple...but I'd rather not be the first to try, especially as there is no way to move back to active/passive firmware afterwards

I'll let the idea boil for a couple of days, perhaps I will do the migration soon Smiley Wink

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alistair_nelson
Contributor
Contributor

Hi

Am a new vmware and msa1000 user and am trying this out now.

Only so far I have installed the v7 firmware in one controller, but the other controller won't sync the firmware (it is just hanging at boot). Maybe I need to configure the disks or 2/8q switches first.

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alistair_nelson
Contributor
Contributor

I should have mentioned also, I only have a HBA in ESX servers so are doing everything via the command line interfaces, perhaps this is my problem as theres a lot to read to get across the interfaces for the first time for both the 2/8q and msa1000 !

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alistair_nelson
Contributor
Contributor

Well I had a faulty cache in one msa1000 disk controller. resolved now.

I'm not sure if I have everything 100% right, but I do have v7 active/active firmware loaded and running for both controllers and talking to vmware cluster.

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FrankHanhart
Contributor
Contributor

Hi Alistair,

luckilly you've overcome the faulty firmware load on your MSA. Can you tell us how this might have happened ?

I.e., did you load the new firmware on 1 controller and it simply didn't synch to the other controller, or did the synching not worked well ?

I have 1 server connected to the MSA running Consolidated backup and HP Array Configuration utility. I suppose I would do the firmware upgrade through the CLI as well, nevertheless..

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FrankHanhart
Contributor
Contributor

oh, darn me... I just noticed you wrote "faulty cache", not "firmware" Smiley Happy

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alistair_nelson
Contributor
Contributor

No worries Smiley Happy The strange thing is, the faulty cache would not work in one controller. Luckily it was a second cache module so removing it proved that. But then I swapped the 2nd cache modules between both controllers and it all started working, firmward synced to v7, etc. Loading first VM onto the active/active config now.

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FrankHanhart
Contributor
Contributor

Oww, I can't wait to go ahead with the firmware upgrade Smiley Happy This weekend we'll have some mass data production so I guess I can start next weekend with the upgrade.

I have 2 ESX boxes connected with 2 FC's. I guess, after the firmware upgrade, I should just make sure ESX1 sees the VMFS volume using path 1, and ESX2 sees the VMFS volume using path 2, and then fire up some VM's ?

Keep us informed of your findings, and any failover tests you did Smiley Wink

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BUGCHK
Commander
Commander

I should just make sure ESX1 sees the VMFS volume using path 1, and

ESX2 sees the VMFS volume using path 2, and then fire up some VM's ?

That is not a good idea, because the MSA is not a cache-centric array and does only provide asymetric active/active support. You can divide individual VMFS devices across both controllers, but a single device should be accessed through its owning controller. Else you will cause much inter-controller traffic.

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FrankHanhart
Contributor
Contributor

Aiiiiii, now that's something I wasn't aware of !!

So I would have to split up my 572GB VMFS volume, into 2 seperate VMFS volumes, each of them dedicated to 1 ESX box ? Doesn't this somehow removes the pro of having a single VMFS which is accessible by multiple ESX boxes ?

Thanks for the hint ! Smiley Happy

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BUGCHK
Commander
Commander

You can still share a VMFS - nothing has changed, but all VMware ESX servers should access it through the same controller (the one which does the physical IO).

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alistair_nelson
Contributor
Contributor

It sounds like I have not got a good configuration then. As I have active/active firmware running with one big logical unit/vmfs, shared by 2 ESX servers through 2 FC switches.

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FrankHanhart
Contributor
Contributor

So I've spend a weekend migrating all VM's to temp local ESX storage and a NFS. I've reconfigured the VMFS volume on the MSA and created 2 new VMFS volumes. Each VMFS volume is currently assigned to 1 ESX server... But what if I want to VMotion a VM ? I've not yet the licenses in house to do this, but will have them shortly.

Once I've upgraded the MSA1000 to active/active firmware, this would be the picture :

ESX1 is accessing Lun1 through controller1, ESX2 is accessing Lun2 through controller2. I probably should make sure that both ESX servers can find both Luns, but using a different path to connect to each Lun, right ?

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sizarraga
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

MSA 1000 is only supported on active/passive mode in ESX3

http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/cache/484328-0-0-0-121.html

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christianZ
Champion
Champion

Well, I guess your information is a little old - the new FW Ver. is 7.x.

And the question - is MSA1000 with FW 7x supported as active/active ?

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alistair_nelson
Contributor
Contributor

yes it is, am running it now.

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bertdb
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

is this active/active in HP terminology or active/active in VMware terminology ?

The question is: can host A and host B talk to LUN C, with A talking through storage processor 1 and B through storage processor B, at the same time ?

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FrankHanhart
Contributor
Contributor

I'm also still wondering if this can be true or not....

If you want to VMotion a machine from server A to server B, do server A and server B need to talk to the same LUN over the same processor ?

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