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P4000 / Lefthand - v9.5 feature list

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +1300

The 9.5 release is a comprehensive release that includes enhancements in the following areas:

Application managed snapshots for VMware ESX Server and Microsoft Hyper-V Server
SAN Status Home Page — the SAN Status home page is the new home page for the CMC and presents key information for all management groups in the storage environment in a single view.
Zero to VSA automated installation and deployment — Single installer can install VSA, FOM and CMC. Go from “zero” to a fully functional virtual SAN in just a few easy steps. Scriptable install tool allows ROBO customers to script install once and deploy VSA quickly at multiple remote locations.
Peer Motion data mobility with cluster swap — Cluster swap allows users to replace or upgrade P4000 clusters. Edit cluster menu guides decisions about adding, removing, or exchanging storage systems. Easily migrate data online between tiers.
Remote Copy performance improvements — Improvements to remote copy times, the time required to scan volumes, ability to support more frequent snapshots, reduction of RPOs for DR solutions.
Storage Replication Adapter for Vsphere Site Recovery Manager 5.x — Supports automated failback and is included on the HP P4000 Application Integration Solution Pack
Best Practice configuration wizards — Configuration wizards guide towards highest availability configurations: add Failover Manager for 2–node configuration, configure disk RAID 6 for single-node configurations, recommends volume replication when expanding clusters to more than one storage system

P4000 / Lefthand and Windows DSM (MPIO)

Wed, 04 May 2011 00:00:00 +1200

Steps to setup MPIO round robin and DSM with P4000 / Lefthand nodes

This example is windows 2008 with 2 x 1gbit nics

Install HP DSM driver onto windows 2008 (this should also install MPIO feature on windows 2008)
Setup 2 x IP’s on windows host - storage subnet (used with MPIO)
1. Confirm you can ping target from both (enable one at a time - ensure there is no routing on your other nics)
Provision storage and allow server read / write access to windows server (via initiator name)
Open iSCSI on windows 2008
Put in IP of target in discovery tab
On first tab confirm that iSCSI drive is presented to host
Click “connect” - check both auto-connect and use MPIO
1. click advanced - chose MS iSCSI initiator, choose first IP and target IP. Click o.k. / o.k
2. click advanced - chose MS iSCSI initiator, choose second IP and target IP. Click o.k. / o.k
3. Repeat above per additional Nic
Confirm via “devices” that there is x (as many targets as nics) targets per disk
1. Within devices choose MPIO - change from vendor specific to “round robin”
  1. Note : read / write access to LUN is required when using “round robin” MPIO opposed to the default “vendor specific” which works with read only access. Else you will get an error - “not supported”
2. Repeat above per “device”
Confirm on Lefthand / P4000 CMC that the LUN has one connection per initiator Nic, and that each connection also has its DSM children (visible in CMC if working).

Confirm that the connection are as expected…

vSphere and Multipathing iSCSI

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +1300

This is just a quick reference to create a multiplathing iSCSI setup…

Create two virtual kernel switches, one called “iSCSI-1” and the other called “iSCSI-2” (and so on if you have more nics)

Then per kernel portgroup ensure that only one of the nics is active. For the “iSCSI-1” portgroup configure it to override the virtual switch settings and move nic 0 to active and nic 1 to unused. For the “iSCSI-2” portgroup configure it to override the virtual switch settings and move nic 1 to active and nic 0 to unused.