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:
Anyone have a spare unit to test this with? ![]()
-Craig
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.
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 ![]()
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 ![]()
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.
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 !
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.
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..
oh, darn me... I just noticed you wrote "faulty cache", not "firmware" ![]()
No worries
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.
Oww, I can't wait to go ahead with the firmware upgrade
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 ![]()
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.
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 ! ![]()
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).
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.
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 ?
MSA 1000 is only supported on active/passive mode in ESX3
http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/cache/484328-0-0-0-121.html
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 ?
yes it is, am running it now.
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 ?
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 ?
