VTRAK S3000 Server User Manual. Version 1.0

Transcription

1 VTRAK S3000 Server User Manual Version 1.0

2 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Copyright 2010 PROMISE Technology, Inc. All Rights Reserved. PROMISE, the PROMISE logo, VTrak, SmartStor, SuperTrak, FastTrak, VessRAID, Vess, PerfectPATH, PerfectRAID, SATA150, ULTRA133 VTrak S3000, BackTrak, HyperCache, HyperCache-R, HyperCache-W, DeltaScan and GreenRAID are registered or pending trademarks of PROMISE Technology, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Information regarding products, services and offerings may be superseded by subsequent documents and are subject to change without notice. For the latest information and specifications regarding PROMISE Technology, Inc. and any of its offerings or services, please contact your local PROMISE office or the corporate headquarters. Visit for more information on PROMISE products. Important data protection information You should back up all data before installing any drive controller or storage peripheral. Promise Technology is not responsible for any loss of data resulting from the use, disuse or misuse of this or any other Promise Technology product. Notice Although Promise Technology has attempted to ensure the accuracy of the content of this manual, it is possible that this document may contain technical inaccuracies, typographical, or other errors. Promise Technology assumes no liability for any error in this publication, and for damages, whether direct, indirect, incidental, consequential or otherwise, that may result from such error, including, but not limited to loss of data or profits. Promise Technology provides this publication as is without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including, but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. The published information in the manual is subject to change without notice. Promise Technology reserves the right to make changes in the product design, layout, and driver revisions without notification to its users. This version of the User Manual supersedes all previous versions. Recommendations In this User Manual, the appearance of products made by other companies, including but not limited to software, servers, and disk drives, is for the purpose of illustration and explanation only. Promise Technology does not recommend, endorse, prefer, or support any product made by another manufacturer. ii

3 Contents Chapter 1: Introduction Architecture Components Appliance SAN Clients Management Console Physical Resources Logical Resources Acronyms Terminology Assigned Resources BackTrak Bare Metal Recovery (BMR) DeltaScan Downstream Foreign Disk GUID Host Zone HyperCache-R HyperCache-W IPMI iscsi Target NIC Port Bonding NPIV PerfectPath Prefetch Read Cache Replication SAN Resource Service-enabled device Snapshot Snapshot Agent SnapshotView Storage Replication Adapter Storage Server Thin Provisioning Trigger VTrak Appliance VTrak JBOD Enclosure VTrak RAID Subsystem Chapter 2: VTrak S3000 Appliance Starting the VTrak Appliance Restarting the VTrak Appliance Shutting Down the VTrak Appliance Logging into the VTrak Appliance Telnet access Linux Clients only Checking VTrak Appliance Process Status Checking Physical Resources Checking Activity Statistics Chapter 3: Management Console Logging into the Management Console Connecting to the Appliance Configuring the Server using the Configuration Wizard Management Console User Interface Searching for Objects in the Tree Storage Server Status and Configuration Alerts Discovering Storage Servers Protecting your Storage Server s Configuration Continuously Saving the Configuration Auto Saving the Configuration Manually Save the Configuration Restoring a Configuration Licensing Setting Server Properties Managing Accounts Viewing Users and Groups Adding a User Adding a Group Adding Users to Groups Setting a User Quota Setting a Group Quota Resetting a User Password Changing the Root User s Password Checking Connectivity between the Server and Console Adding an iscsi User or Mutual CHAP User Deleting an iscsi User or Mutual CHAP User Resetting a CHAP Secret Applying Software Patches Rolling Back a Patch System Maintenance Tasks Configuring the Network Setting the Hostname Restarting VTrak S Restarting the Network Rebooting the Server Halting the Server Choosing IPMI Options Physical Resources Physical Resource Icons Preparing Devices to become Logical Resources Renaming a Physical Device Rescanning Adapters Importing a Foreign Disk Testing Physical Device Throughput iii

4 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Chapter 3: Management Console, cont. Physical Resources, cont. SCSI Aliasing Repairing Paths to a Device Logical Resources SAN Resources Groups Logical Resource Icons Write Caching Replication SAN Clients Changing the ACSL Granting Access to a SAN Client Webstart for Java Console Console Options Creating a Custom Menu Chapter 4: Storage Pools Managing Storage Pools Creating Storage Pools Setting Properties for a Storage Pool Chapter 5: Logical Resources Types of SAN Resources Virtual devices Thin Provisioning Check the Status of a Thin Disk Service-Enabled Devices Creating SAN Resources and Procedures Preparing Devices to Become SAN Resources Creating a Virtual Device SAN Resource Creating a Direct Device or Service- Enabled Device Assigning a SAN Resource After Client Assignment Creating a File System on a Disk Managed by VTrak S Virtual device from a different server.. 51 Expanding a Virtual Device Windows Dynamic Disks Windows Fibre Channel Clients Linux Fibre Channel Clients Granting Access to a SAN Resource Unassigning a SAN Resource from a Client Deleting a SAN Resource Chapter 6: Logs and Reports Viewing the Event Log Sorting Information in the Event Log Choosing Event Log Options Refreshing the Event Log Printing and Exporting the Event Log Chapter 6: Logs and Reports, cont. Generating Reports Creating Individual Reports Viewing Reports Exporting Data from a Report Scheduling Reports Report Types Client Throughput Report Delta Replication Status Report Disk Space Usage Report Disk Usage History Report Fibre Channel Configuration Report Physical Resources Configuration Report..68 Physical Resources Allocation Report Physical Resource Allocation Report Resource I/O Activity Report SCSI Channel Throughput Report SCSI Device Throughput Report SAN Client Usage Distribution Report SAN Client/Resources Allocation Report...73 SAN Resources Allocation Report SAN Resource Usage Distribution Report..74 Server Throughput and Filtered Server Throughput Report Storage Pool Configuration Report User Quota Usage Report Global Replication Reports Creating Global Reports Viewing Global Reports Chapter 7: iscsi Clients Supported Platforms Requirements Configuring iscsi Clients Enabling iscsi Configuring your iscsi Initiator Adding iscsi Clients to the Management Console Creating Storage Targets for the iscsi Client..84 Restarting the iscsi initiator Windows iscsi Clients and Failover Disabling iscsi Chapter 8: Fibre Channel Target Mode Supported Platforms Installation and Configuration Overview Configuring Fibre Channel Hardware on the Server Ports Downstream Persistent Binding Volume Set Addressing Zoning Switches QLogic HBAs Target mode settings iv

5 Chapter 8: Fibre Channel Target Mode, cont. Configuring Fibre Channel Hardware on the Client Persistent Binding Fabric Topology QLogic MPIO Driver Support HBA Failover Settings for FC Client Connectivity Windows Disk Timeout Value LUNS per Target Clustering Linux All Versions Enabling Fibre Channel Target Mode Disabling Fibre Channel Target Mode Verifying the Fibre Channel WWPN Setting QLogic Ports to Target Mode QLogic NPIV HBAs Setting NPIV Ports to Target Mode Setting up your Failover Configuration HBAs and Failover Failover with Multiple Switches Failover Limitations Installing and Running Client Software Associating WWPNs with Clients Assigning Virtualized Resources to Fibre Channel Clients Triggering a Device Rescan PerfectPath on your Client Machines Spoofing an HBA WWPN Minimizing WWPN conflicts Configuring HBAs for Spoofing Configuring WWNN Chapter 9: SAN Clients Adding Clients from the Management Console SAN Client Configuration Starting and Stopping SAN Client Processes Using the Client Program Adding, Deleting, and Expanding Virtual Devices Linux Device Mapping Uninstalling a SAN Client Linux Chapter 10: Security System Management Data Access Security Recommendations Storage Network Topology Physical Security of Machines Disabling Ports Chapter 11: Failover Overview Connectivity Failure Storage Device Path Failure Storage Device Failure Storage Server and Storage Device Failure Failover Overview Primary and Secondary Storage Servers..112 Failover and Takeover Swap Recovery and Failback Asymmetric mode Failover Requirements General Failover Requirements General Failover Requirements for iscsi Clients Shared Storage Failover Requirements FC-based Asymmetric Failover Requirements Failover Restrictions Failover Setup Power Control Option Checking Failover Status Failover Information Report Failover Network Failure Status Report After Failover Manual recovery Fixing a Failed Server Replacing a Failed Server Modifying Failover Configuration Making Changes to the Servers in your Failover Configuration Changing the Physical Device Changing the Subnet Converting a Failover Configuration to a Mutual Failover Configuration Exclude Physical Devices from Health Checking Changing your Failover Intervals Verifying that Physical Devices Match Starting and Stopping Failover or Recovery Forcing a Takeover by a Secondary Server Manually Initiate a Recovery to your Primary Server Suspending and Resuming Failover Remove a Failover Configuration Mirroring and Failover Snapshot and Failover v

6 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Chapter 12: Performance Using HyperCache-W Configuring HyperCache-W Global Cache HyperCache-W for Groups Creating a Cache Resource Checking the Status of your HyperCache-W Resource HyperCache-W Properties Disabling your HyperCache-W Resource. 136 Using HyperCache-R Read Cache Prefetch Configuring a HyperCache-R Check the Status of HyperCache-R HyperCache-R Properties Disabling HyperCache-R Chapter 13: Mirroring Synchronous Mirroring Asynchronous Mirroring Mirroring Requirements Mirror Setup Creating Cache Resources Checking Mirroring Status Swapping the Primary Disk with the Mirrored Copy Promoting the Mirrored Copy to an Independent Virtual Drive Recovering from a Mirroring Hardware Failure Replacing a Failed Disk Fixing a Minor Disk Failure Replacing a Disk that is Part of an Active Mirror Configuration Replacing a Failed Physical Disk without Rebooting Expanding the Primary Disk Manually Synchronizing a Mirror Setting Mirror Re-synchronization Priority Rebuilding a Mirror Suspending and Resuming Mirroring Changing your Mirroring Configuration Options Setting Global Mirroring Options Changing Properties for a Specific Resource Removing a Mirror Configuration Mirroring and Failover Chapter 14: Snapshot Resources Creating a Snapshot Resource Checking the Status of a Snapshot Resource Protecting your Snapshot Resources Options for Snapshot Resources Chapter 14: Snapshot Resources, cont. Using the Advanced Backup Feature isbkconfig Single Disk Backup Single Disk Restore Group Backup Group Restore Reset Advanced Backup Operation Copying a SAN Resource Check Snapshot Copy Status Groups Creating a Group Groups with Snapshot Enabled Groups with HyperCache-W enabled Groups with Replication Enabled Granting Access to a Group Add Resources to a Group Removing Resources from a Group Chapter 15: Snapshots Overview Setting up for Snapshots Checking Snapshots Status Adding Comments or Changing Priority of Existing Snapshots Manually Creating Snapshots Copying Snapshots Recovering Data using SnapshotView Remapping a SnapshotView Deleting a SnapshotView Rolling Back and Rolling Forward Changing Snapshots Policies Deleting SnapshotViews in Batch Mode Deleting Snapshots Disabling Snapshots Replication and Snapshots Chapter 16: NIC Port Bonding Enabling NIC Port Bonding Single NIC Port Bonding Multiple NIC Port Bonding Removing NIC Port Bonding Changing a Bonded IP Address Chapter 17: Replication Overview Remote Replication Local Replication How Replication Works Continuous Replication Replication Configuration Requirements Setup Replication Begins Continuous Replication Protect Your Replica Resource Creating Continuous Replication Resources..195 vi

7 Chapter 17: Replication, cont. Checking Replication Status Replication Tab Event Log Replication Objects Delta Replication Status Report Setting Global Replication Options Testing Replication Parameters Assigning Clients to the Replica Disk Switching Clients to the Replica Disk when the Primary Disk Fails Recreating an Original Replicatio Configuration Using Snapshot to Recover Files from your Replica Changing Replication Configuration Options Suspending and Resuming the Replication Schedule Setting Replication Synchronization Priority Reversing a Replication Configuration Reversing a Replica Primary Not Available. 203 Forcing Role Reversal Relocating a Replica Removing a Replication Configuration Expanding the Primary Disk Replication with Other VTrak S3000 features. 204 Replication and Snapshot Replication and Failover Replication and Mirroring Replication and Thin Provisioning Chapter 18: Near-line Mirroring Near-line Mirroring Requirements Near-line Mirroring Setup Suspend mirroring Enabling Near-line Mirroring on Multiple Resources Near-line Disks are Prepared but not Created Near-line Mirror is Created Checking Near-line Mirroring Status Near-line Recovery Recovering Data from a Near-line Mirror Recovering Data from a Near-line Replica Recovering from a Near-line Replica Snapshots using Forceful Role Reversal Swapping the Primary Disk with the Near-line Mirrored Copy Manually Synchronize a Near-line Mirror Rebuilding a Near-line Mirror Expanding a Near-line Mirror Expanding a Service-Enabled Disk Suspending and Resuming Near-line Mirroring Chapter 18: Near-line Mirroring, cont. Changing Mirroring Configuration Options Setting Global Mirroring Options Changing Properties for a Primary Resource Changing Properties for a Near-Line Resource Removing a Near-line Mirror Configuration Recovering From a Near-line Mirroring Hardware Failure Replacing a Failed Disk Replacing Both Failed Disks Fixing a Minor Disk Failure Performing a Recovery on a Near-Line Server Replacing a Disk in an Active Near-line Mirror Replacing a Failed Physical Disk without Rebooting Chapter 19: Alerts Configuration Modifying Alerts Properties Script/Program Trigger Information Custom Destination New Script/Program Return Codes Output from Trigger Sample script Chapter 20: Multipathing Load Distribution Path Management Chapter 21: Troubleshooting SCSI Adapters and Devices Replacing a Physical Disk Fibre Channel Target Mode and Storage Logical Resources Event Log Network Connectivity Linux SAN Client Jumbo Frames Support Client Connectivity Windows Clients Windows Client Debug Information iscsi Clients Client Loses File Shares Client Disconnects iscsi Initiator Fails to Connect Fibre Channel Clients Initiator Times-out Linux SAN Client Client Configuration Error Client Device Failed Aborting due to Timeout vii

8 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Chapter 21: Troubleshooting, cont. Storage Server Taking an X-ray of the Storage Server Failover Incorrect Failover Status Performing a Recovery on a Near-Line Server in Failed State Near-Line Mirror Disk Replication Replication Failure Compression Replication and Snapshot Failure Role Reversal Failure Snapshot Rollback Failure Snapshot Copy Failure HyperCache-W Physical Resource Failed Cannot Disable Cache Cannot Write to Virtual Device SNMP Command Line Interface Service Enabled Devices SED Option SED Marked Incomplete Snapshot Resources Block Devices Virtual Device Expansion Appendix A: Support Contacting Technical Support Technical Support Services United States The Netherlands Germany Italy Taiwan China Limited Warranty Disclaimer of other warranties Your Responsibilities Returning the Product For Repair viii

9 Chapter 1: Introduction This chapter covers the following topics: Architecture (page 1) Components (page 2) Acronyms (page 3) Terminology (page 4) The Promise Technology s VTrak S3000 delivers open SAN storage virtualization, provisioning, and heterogeneous storage management that works across disk vendor and storage protocol boundaries to optimize storage utilization, reduce costs, and increase IT productivity in enterprise organizations. VTrak S3000 features: Open architecture connects storage across vendor barriers, Fibre Channel (FC), SAS, and iscsi protocols, and virtual server environments. Manage virtualized storage and existing non-virtualized storage from a single console. Thin Provisioning maximizes disk utilization while reducing storage costs and power consumption. Application-aware Snapshot Agents, including Microsoft Windows certified agents, ensure 100% transactional integrity. Synchronous mirroring between disk arrays enables data migration with no downtime. Certified for use with VMware virtual servers and supports VMware Site Recovery Manager. Integrated Microsoft Exchange message recovery. Serverless backup accelerates backup performance. Supports individual LUNs up to 16TB. Thin Replication directly replicates entire system and data to a remote disaster recovery (DR) site. Maximizes network efficiency and security via compression and encryption, saving bandwidth and costs. VTrak S3000 includes snapshots that work with the snapshot agents in databases and messaging applications, providing 100% transactional integrity for instant recovery to known points in time helping IT meet Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) and Recovery Time Objectives (RTO). Data managed by VTrak S3000 may be efficiently replicated via IP using Promise Replication option for real-time Disaster Recovery (DR) protection. Thin Provisioning helps automate storage resource allocation and capacity management while virtualization provides centralized management for large, heterogeneous storage environments. Architecture VTrak S3000 can be deployed in several ways to best fit your organization s needs. VTrak S3000 is available in multiple configurations suitable for remote offices, branch offices, data centers, and remote DR sites. See page 2, Figure 3. There are two principal hardware components in a VTrak S3000 system, the VTrak appliance and the VTrak RAID subsystem. Some S3000 systems have one or more VTrak JBOD enclosures. Figure 1. VTrak appliance Figure 2. VTrak RAID subsystem The selection, connection, and setup of these physical devices is covered in the VTrak S3000 Setup Guide on the software DVD. A system can be very simple, with one appliance and one subsystem. Or it can be complex with multiple appliances and subsystems. 1

10 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Figure 3. A typical VTrak S3000 configuration Components The primary components of the VTrak S3000 are the appliance, SAN clients, Promise Management Console, physical resources, and logical resources. All of these components are connected to the same network segment, the storage network. Appliance The VTrak appliance is a computer dedicated to running the Management Console and the Storage Server software. The appliance is attached to the physical SAS and Fibre Channel storage devices. The appliance communicates data requests between the clients and the logical SAN resources logically mapped storage devices on the storage network via Fibre Channel or iscsi. SAN Clients SAN Clients are the actual file and application servers. They are sometimes referred to as VTrak S3000 SAN clients because they utilize the storage resources via the storage server (VTrak appliance). You can have iscsi or Fibre Channel SAN clients on your storage network. Storage resources appear as locally attached devices to the SAN Clients operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and VMware, even though the SCSI devices are actually located at the storage server (VTrak appliance). Management Console The Promise Management Console is the administration tool for the storage network. It is a Java application that can be used on a variety of platforms and enables VTrak S3000 administrators to create, configure, manage, and monitor the storage resources and services on the storage network. Physical Resources Physical resources are the actual devices attached to this storage server (VTrak appliance). These can be hard disks, tape drives, device libraries, and RAID subsystems, including VTrak RAID subsystems and VTrak JBOD enclosures. You can have SAS or Fibre Channel resources on your storage network. From the front, VTrak RAID subsystems and JBOD enclosures look the same. From the back, the RAID subsystems and JBOD enclosures are quite different. See the VTrak S3000 Setup Guide on the software DVD for more information. Logical Resources All resources defined on the storage server (VTrak appliance), including physical SAN Resources virtual drives and Service- Enabled Devices (SEDs) Replica Resources, and Snapshot Groups. 2

11 Chapter 1: Introduction Clients do not gain access to physical resources. They only have access to logical resources. This means that an administrator must configure each physical resource to one or more logical resources so that they can be assigned to the clients. Logical Resources consist of sets of storage blocks from one or more physical drives. This arrangement enables the creation of Logical Resources that contain a portion of a larger physical disk device or an aggregation of multiple physical disk devices. The example below illustrates three logical resources being created from a single large RAID device. Understanding how to create and manage Logical Resources is critical to a successful storage network. Fore more information, see Chapter 5: Logical Resources on page 39. Acronyms Acronym Definition ACL Access Control List ACSL Adaptor, Channel, SCSI ID, LUN BDC Backup Domain Controller BMR Bare Metal Recovery (see page 4) CDR Continuous Data Replication CHAP Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol CIFS Common Internet File System DAS Direct Attached Storage DR Disaster Recovery GUI Graphical User Interface GUID Global Unique Identifier HBA Host Bus Adapter HCA Host Channel Adapter IMA Intelligent Management Administrator I/O Input/Output IP Internet Protocol IPMI Intelligent Platform Management Interface (see page 5) JBOD Just a Bunch Of Disks LUN Logical Unit Number NFS Network File System NIC Network Interface Card NNM Network Node Manager NPIV N_Port ID Virtualization NTFS New Technology File System 3

12 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Acronym NVRAM PDC PLOGI POSIX RAS RPC RPO RTO SAN SCSI SDM SED SRA SSD VSS WWNN WWPN Definition Non-volatile Random Access Memory Primary Domain Controller Port Log-in (used with Fibre Channel) Portable Operating System Interface Reliability, Availability, Service Remote Procedure Call Recovery Point Objectives Recovery Time Objectives Storage Area Network Small Computer System Interface SAN Disk Manager Service Enabled Device Storage Replication Adapter Solid State Disk Volume Shadow Copy Service World Wide Node Number World Wide Port Number Terminology Assigned Resources Logical resources that have been assigned to a client. BackTrak The BackTrak Backup Accelerator works in conjunction with VTrak S3000 to increase tape backup speed, eliminate backup windows, and off load processing from application servers. For more information, see the BackTrak User Manual. Bare Metal Recovery (BMR) The process of rebuilding a computer after a catastrophic failure. The normal bare metal restoration process is to install the operating system from the product disks, install the backup software, and then restore your data. DeltaScan Promise DeltaScan is a patented de-duplication technology that minimizes the amount of data transferred during replication by eliminating inefficiencies at the application and file system layer. Data changes and replicated are replicated at the smallest possible level of granularity, reducing bandwidth and associated storage costs for disaster recovery (DR), or any time data is replicated from one source to another. Downstream Usually refers to the data path below the storage server (VTrak appliance), including switches and storage connected to VTrak S3000 appliance. Foreign Disk A virtualized physical device containing logical resources previously set up on a different VTrak appliance. 4

13 Chapter 1: Introduction GUID Global Unique Identifier (GUID), the permanent identifier for virtual devices over 2 TB in capacity. Host Zone Usually a Fibre Channel zone that is comprised of an application server's initiator port and a target port. HyperCache-R An VTrak S3000 option that automatically re-maps data from frequently used areas of disks to higher performance storage devices in the infrastructure, resulting in enhanced read performance for the application accessing the storage. HyperCache-W IPMI An VTrak S3000 option that saves data writes to higher performance storage devices, such as RAM disks or Solid State Disks (SSDs), resulting in enhanced write performance for the application accessing the storage. Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) is a hardware level interface that monitors various hardware functions on a server. iscsi Target A storage target for the iscsi client. NIC Port Bonding NPIV Port Bonding, sometimes known as link aggregation, enables you to use multiple network ports in parallel to increase the link speed beyond the limit of a single port and improve redundancy for higher availability. The appliance must have at least two NIC ports to create one bond group and at least four NIC ports to create two bond groups. If you choose 1 Bond Group, all ports as the bond type, all discovered NIC ports are combined into a single group. If you choose 2 Bond Groups, half of the ports in each as the bond type, each group contains half of the discovered NIC ports. Round-Robin mode (mode 0) is the default and is best for a simple switch environment where all ports are on a single switch. Round Robin mode transmits data in a sequential, round-robin order and is good for general purpose load balancing and fault tolerance. It uses standard switches and does not require more switch setup. Link Aggregation mode (mode 4) is a more dedicated, tuned mode where the NIC ports work together with switches using the 802.1AX standard to optimize traffic. This mode requires IEEE 802.IX- capable switches and is best for multi-switch environments with supported switches. N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) enables multiple N_Port IDs to share a single physical N_Port, this enables us to have an initiator, target and standby occupying the same physical port This is not supported when using Multi-ID. PerfectPath PerfectPath is a load balancing and path redundancy application that ensures constant data availability and peak performance across the SAN through load-balancing, transparent failover, and fail-back services. PerfectPath creates parallel active storage paths that transparently reroute server traffic without interruption in the event of a storage network problem. For more information, see the PerfectPath User Manual. Prefetch A feature that enables pre-fetching of data for clients. This enables clients to read ahead consecutively, which can result in improved performance because the storage server (VTrak appliance) has the data ready from the anticipatory read as soon as the next request is received from the client. This reduces the latency of the command and improve the sequential read benchmarks in most cases. 5

14 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Read Cache An intelligent, policy-driven, disk-based staging mechanism that automatically remaps hot (frequently used) areas of disks to high-speed storage devices, such as RAM disks, NVRAM, or Solid State Disks (SSDs). Replication The replication option replicates data over any existing infrastructure. In addition, it can be used for site migration, remote site consolidation for backup, and similar tasks. Using an open storage-centric approach, replication is configured and managed independently of servers, so it integrates with any operating system or application for cost-effective disaster recovery (DR). SAN Resource Provides storage for file and application servers, called SAN clients. When a SAN Resource is assigned to a SAN client, a virtual adapter is defined for that client. The SAN Resource is assigned a virtual SCSI ID on the virtual adapter. This mimics the configuration of actual SCSI storage devices and adapters, allowing the operating system and applications to treat them like any other SCSI device. Service-enabled device Service-enabled devices (SED) are hard disk drives or RAID LUNs with existing data that can be accessed by VTrak S3000 to make use of all key storage services, such as mirroring and snapshot. This can be done without any migration or copying, without any modification of data, and with minimal downtime. Service-enabled devices are used to migrate existing drives into the SAN. Snapshot A snapshot of an entire device enables us to capture data at any given moment in time and move it to either tape or another storage medium, while allowing data to be written to the device. You can perform a snapshot to capture a point-in-time image of your data volumes (virtual drives) using minimal storage space. Snapshot technology enables you to create scheduled and ondemand point-in-time delta snapshot copies of data volumes. Snapshot Agent Application-aware Snapshot Agents provide complete data protection for active databases, such as Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle, and messaging applications such as Microsoft Exchange. These agents ensure that snapshots are taken with full transactional integrity. For more information, see the Snapshot Agent User Manual and the Snapshot Director User Manual. SnapshotView An extension of the Snapshot option that enables you to mount a virtual drive as of a specific point-in-time. Storage Replication Adapter Storage Replication Adapter (SRA) integrates with VMware vcenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) to automate disaster recovery for systems using VMware Infrastructure with storage managed by Promise Network Storage Server software and built on VTrak technology. For more information, see the Storage Network Adapter User Manual. Storage Server The storage server is the software that runs on the VTrak appliance. In the Management Console user interface, the terms storage server and VTrak appliance are considered as a single entity and are used interchangeably. Thin Provisioning For virtual resources, Thin Provisioning enables you to use your storage space more efficiently by allocating a minimum amount of space for the virtual resource. Then, when usage thresholds are met, more storage is allocated as necessary. Trigger An event that sends an alert when it is time to perform a snapshot of a virtual device. Replication, Snapshot, and Snapshot Copy options all trigger snapshots. 6

15 Chapter 1: Introduction VTrak Appliance The VTrak appliance is the hardware the runs the storage server software. The VTrak appliance is placed in the data path between an application host and its storage. The appliance is attached upstream to iscsi and Fibre Channel client devices. It communicates data requests between the clients and the logical SAN resources. The appliance is attached downstream to SAS and Fibre Channel storage devices. It manages the logical SAN resources on the VTrak RAID subsystems and JBOD enclosures. VTrak JBOD Enclosure The VTrak JBOD enclosure houses additional physical drives to expand the storage capacity of the RAID subsystem. A VTrak RAID subsystem manages the VTrak JBOD enclosure. Some configurations have one or more VTrak JBOD enclosures. VTrak RAID Subsystem The VTrak RAID subsystem houses physical drives and manages your arrays and logical drives. It houses the data managed by the VTrak appliance. All configurations have at least one VTrak RAID subsystem. The VTrak RAID subsystem also manages the VTrak JBOD enclosures. 7

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17 Chapter 2: VTrak S3000 Appliance This chapter covers the following topics: Starting the VTrak Appliance (page 9) Shutting Down the VTrak Appliance (page 10) Logging into the VTrak Appliance (page 10) Checking VTrak Appliance Process Status (page 11) Checking Physical Resources (page 11) Checking Activity Statistics (page 12) The VTrak S3000 Appliance requires little or no maintenance. All day-to-day VTrak administrative functions can be performed through the Management Console. However, there may be situations when direct access to the appliance is required, particularly during initial setup and configuration of physical storage devices attached to the appliance or for troubleshooting purposes. If access to the appliance s operating system is required, you can connect either directly or remotely from one of computers on the SAN. See Logging into the VTrak Appliance on page 10. Starting the VTrak Appliance To start the VTrak S3000 appliance, execute the following commands: cd /usr/local/vtrak/bin./vtrak start Restarting the VTrak Appliance To stop and restart the appliance, execute the following command:./vtrak restart You can observe the processes as they start or restart, as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1. VTrak appliance processes during startup These processes appear when iscsi Target Mode is enabled. This process appears when Failover is enabled. Starting VTrak S3000 SNMPD Module [OK] Starting VTrak S3000 Configuration Module [OK] Starting VTrak S3000 Base Module [OK] Starting VTrak S3000 HBA Module [OK] Starting VTrak S3000 Initiator Module [OK] Starting VTrak S3000 Control Module [OK] Starting VTrak S3000 Authentication Module [OK] Starting VTrak S3000 Block Device Module [OK] Starting VTrak S3000 Server (Compression) Module [OK] Starting VTrak S3000 Server (Falseness) Module [OK] Starting VTrak S3000 Server (Apical) Module [OK] Starting VTrak S3000 Server (Transport) [OK] Starting VTrak S3000 Server (Event) Module [OK] Starting VTrak S3000 Server (Path Manager) Module [OK] Starting VTrak S3000 Server (Application) [OK] Starting VTrak S3000 Advanced Backup Module [OK] Starting VTrak S3000 Target Module [OK] Starting VTrak S3000 iscsi Target Module [OK] Starting VTrak S3000 iscsi (Daemon) [OK] Starting VTrak S3000 Communication Module [OK] Starting VTrak S3000 CLI Proxy Module [OK] Starting VTrak S3000 Logger Module [OK] Starting VTrak S3000 Self Monitor Module [OK] Starting VTrak S3000 Flivver Module [OK] 9

18 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Shutting Down the VTrak Appliance To shut down the VTrak appliance: Execute the commands cd /usr/local/vtrak/bin./vtrak stop You can observe the processes stopping, similar to page 9, Figure 1. Logging into the VTrak Appliance You can log in from a keyboard and display connected directly to the appliance. No graphical user interface (GUI) shell is required. By default, only the root user has log-in privileges. Other VTrak administrators do not have log-in privileges. To log in, enter the user name and the password for the root user. Telnet access By default, VTrak administrators do not have Telnet access to the appliance. The appliance is configured to deny all TCP/IP access, including Telnet. To enable Telnet: 1. Install the following rpm files on the appliance: #rpm ivh xinetd-.rpm #rpm ivh telnet-.rpm 2. Enter the following command #vi /etc/xinetd.d/telnet 3. Change disable=yes to disable=no. 4. Enter the following command #service xinetd restart Warning Shutting down the VTrak appliance interrupts access to all storage resources that the appliance manages. This action can halt processing on your application servers or cause them to crash. Before you shut down the VTrak appliance, make sure your application servers are not accessing any storage resources. Warning Allow access to your VTrak appliance only to your most trusted system or storage administrators. Administrators with login access to the appliance can modify, damage, or destroy your data. Linux Clients only To grant Telnet access to another computer on the network: 1. Log into the Server directly (on the local console keyboard and display). 2. Change the etc/passwd file from :/dev/null:/dev/null to Username:/homedirectory:/bin/bash Where Username is an actual administrator name and homedirectory is the actual home directory. Note For a more secure session, use the SSH program included with some versions of the Linux OS. Refer to your OS manual for more information. 10

19 Chapter 2: VTrak S3000 Appliance Checking VTrak Appliance Process Status To check the status of the processes running on the VTrak appliance type the following commands: cd /usr/local/vtrak/bin./vtrak status You can observe which processes are running, as shown in Figure 2. Figure 2. VTrak appliance processes These processes appear when iscsi Target Mode is enabled. This process appears when Failover is enabled. Status of VTrak S3000 SNMPD Module [RUNNING] Status of VTrak S3000 Base Module [RUNNING] Status of VTrak S3000 HBA Module [RUNNING] Status of VTrak S3000 Initiator Module [RUNNING] Status of VTrak S3000 Control Module [RUNNING] Status of VTrak S3000 Authentication Module [RUNNING] Status of VTrak S3000 Block Device Module [RUNNING] Status of VTrak S3000 Server (Compression) Module [RUNNING] Status of VTrak S3000 Server (FSNBase) Module [RUNNING] Status of VTrak S3000 Server (Upcall) Module [RUNNING] Status of VTrak S3000 Server (Transport) [RUNNING] Status of VTrak S3000 Server (Event) Module [RUNNING] Status of VTrak S3000 Server (Path Manager) Module [RUNNING] Status of VTrak S3000 Server (Application) [RUNNING] Status of VTrak S3000 Advanced Backup Module [RUNNING] Status of VTrak S3000 Target Module [RUNNING] Status of VTrak S3000 iscsi Target Module [RUNNING] Status of VTrak S3000 iscsi (Daemon) [RUNNING] Status of VTrak S3000 Communication Module [RUNNING] Status of VTrak S3000 CLI Proxy Module [RUNNING] Status of VTrak S3000 Logger Module [RUNNING] Status of VTrak S3000 Local Client (VBDI) [RUNNING] Status of VTrak S3000 SANBridge Daemon [RUNNING] Status of VTrak S3000 Anti Virus Daemon [RUNNING] Status of VTrak S3000 Self Monitor Module [RUNNING] Status of VTrak S3000 Failover Module [RUNNING] Checking Physical Resources To verify what physical resources are present, execute this command in the Linux shell prompt: cat /proc/scsi/scsi The commands displays the SCSI devices attached to the VTrak appliance, as shown in Figure 3. Figure 3. SCSI devices on the VTrak S3000 appliance [0:0:0:0] disk 3ware Logical Disk /dev/sda [0:0:1:0] disk 3ware Logical Disk /dev/sdb [2:0:1:0] disk PSG ST318203FC!# B324 - [2:0:2:0] disk PSG ST318203FC!# B324 - [2:0:3:0] disk PSG ST318304FC!# B335-11

20 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Checking Activity Statistics VTrak S3000 includes a utility that displays activity statistics for virtual and physical devices, and Fibre Channel target ports. The utility also reports pending commands for QLogic Fibre Channel initiator and target ports. To view activity statistics, execute this command on the appliance: ismon The command displays all virtual resources, such as SAN and Snapshot, for this appliance. For each resource, the screen shows its size, amount of reads and writes in KB/s and the number of read or write commands per second. The screen refreshes automatically every five seconds. You can change the information displayed how it is sorted. Press the appropriate key for the option you want, as shown in the table below. Key c v p t u d V R r o A S W w E N P m l k K h q Description Toggles between incremental and cumulative modes. Display information for virtual devices. Display information for physical devices. You can also launch ismon -p at the command prompt. Display information for each FC target. You can also launch ismon -t at the command prompt. Page up. Page down. Sort by virtual device ID. Sort by KB read. Sort by read SCSI command. Sort by other SCSI command. Sort by ACSL. Sort by virtual device size. Sort by KB written. Sort by write SCSI command. Sort by SCSI command error. Sort by virtual device name. Sort by WWPN. Display Max value fields, only under incremental mode. Start logging. Reload virtual device name alias. Edit virtual device name alias. View help page. Quit. 12

21 Chapter 3: Management Console This chapter covers the following topics: Logging into the Management Console (page 13) Connecting to the Appliance (page 14) Configuring the Server using the Configuration Wizard (page 15) Management Console User Interface (page 15) Physical Resources (page 26) Logical Resources (page 30) The Promise Management Console is your interface with the software running on the VTrak appliance. To run the Management Console, your PC must have the latest version of JRE installed. You make the initial connection to the Management Console through your network browser. If you cannot log into the Management Console on every client, see Webstart for Java Console on page 32 for information on using this feature. Note If your screen resolution is 640 x 480, the splash screen may be cut off while the console loads. The console might not launch on certain systems with display settings configured to use 16 colors. The console must run from a directory with write access. Otherwise, the host name information and message log file retrieved from the appliance cannot be saved to the local directory. As a result, the console displays event messages as numbers and console options cannot be saved. Logging into the Management Console To log into the Management Console: 1. Launch your network browser. 2. In the browser s address field, type followed by the appliance s IP address and press Enter. VTrak appliance IP address 13

22 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual The Opening launch.jnlp dialog box appears. 3. In the Opening launch.jnlp dialog box, choose the Open with option, choose Java Web Start Launcher from the dropdown menu, and click the OK button. JRE launches on your PC. If a Warning Security dialog box appears, click the Run button to continue. The Management Console opens on your PC After the Management Console is open, you can close your browser. Connecting to the Appliance To connect to the Storage Server: 1. Choose Tools > Discover to discover all appliances. 2. Connect to an appliance. Existing storage server Right-click the server and choose Connect. Enter a valid user name and password. User name and password are case sensitive. New storage server Right-click the storage servers object and choose Add. Enter the name or IP address of the server. When you connect to a server for the first time, a configuration wizard launches. You might see a dialog box notifying you of new devices attached to the server. Here, you can see all devices that are either unassigned or reserved. After adding licenses, you can either prepare the device, meaning to reserve it for a virtual or service-enabled device, or create a logical resource. Once you are connected to a server, the server icon changes to show that you are connected. If you connect to a server that is part of a failover configuration, you are automatically connected to both servers. Note The Promise Management Console remembers the servers to which the console has successfully connected. If you close and restart the console, the servers still display in the tree but you are not connected to them. 14

23 Chapter 3: Management Console Configuring the Server using the Configuration Wizard The Configuration Wizard leads you through entering license keycodes and setting up your network configuration. 1. Enter your license keys. Click the Add button and enter your keycodes. Be sure to enter keycodes for any options you have purchased. Each Promise option requires that a keycode be entered before the option can be configured and used. After completing the configuration wizard, if you need to add license keycodes, right-click your VTrak appliance and choose License. 2. Set up the Network. Enter information about your network configuration. If you need to change storage server IP addresses, you must make these changes using System Maintenance > Network Configuration in the console. Note Caution Using yast or other third-party utilities do not update the information correctly. After completing the configuration wizard, if you need to change these settings, you can right-click your VTrak appliance and choose System Maintenance > Network Configuration. 3. Set a Hostname. Enter a valid name for your storage appliance. Valid characters are letters, numbers, underscore, or dash. You must restart the server if you change the hostname. Note Caution Do not change the hostname if you are using block devices. If you do, all block devices claimed by VTrak S3000 are marked offline and seen as foreign devices. Management Console User Interface The Management Console displays the configuration for the storage servers on your storage network. The information is organized in a familiar Explorer-like Tree. The Tree enables you to navigate the various storage servers and their configuration objects. You can expand or collapse the display to show only the information that you wish to view. To expand an item that is collapsed, you can click the symbol next to the item. To collapse an item, click the symbol next to the item. Double-clicking an item toggles its expanded/collapsed view. You must connect to a server before you can expand it. When you highlight an object in the Tree, the right pane contains detailed information about the object. Click the tabs for more information. The console log located at the bottom of the window displays information about the local version of the console. The log features a drop-down box that enables you to see activity from this console session. Searching for Objects in the Tree The console search feature helps you find any physical device, virtual device, or client on any storage server. To search for an object: 1. Highlight a storage server in the Tree. 2. Choose Edit > Find. 3. Choose the type of object to search for and the search criteria. 15

24 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Once you choose an object type, a list of existing objects appears. If you highlight an object, you go directly to that object in the Tree. Alternatively, you can type the full name: adapter, channel, SCSI ID, LUN (ACSL), or Global Unique Identifier (GUID). Click the Search button to go directly to that object in the Tree. Storage Server Status and Configuration The console displays the configuration and status of the storage server. Configuration information includes the version of the VTrak S3000 software and base operating system, the type and number of processors, amount of physical and swappable memory, supported protocols, and network adapter information. The Event Log tab displays system events and errors. Alerts The console displays all critical alerts when you log into the server. Choose Display only the new alerts next time if you only want to see new critical alerts the next time you log in. Choosing this option indicates acknowledgement of the alerts. Discovering Storage Servers The Management Console can automatically discover all VTrak S3000 storage servers on your storage subnet. To discover the servers: 1. Choose Tools > Discover. 2. Enter your network criteria. Protecting your Storage Server s Configuration Promise provides several convenient ways to protect your VTrak S3000 configuration. This is useful for disaster recovery purposes, such as if a storage server is out of commission but you have the storage disks and want to use them to build a new storage server. You should create a configuration repository even on a standalone server. Continuously Saving the Configuration You can create a configuration repository that maintains a continuously updated version of your storage system configuration. The status of the configuration repository is displayed on the console under the General tab. In the case of a failure of the configuration repository, the console displays the time of the failure along with the last successful update. This feature works seamlessly with the Promise Failover option to provide business continuity in the event that a storage server fails. For more redundancy, the configuration repository can be mirrored to another disk. See page 118 for information about creating a configuration repository. If you are using the Failover option and a storage server fails, the secondary server automatically uses the same repository configuration to maintain continuity and service clients. Auto Saving the Configuration You can set your system to automatically replicate your system configuration to an FTP server on a regular basis. Auto Save takes a point-in-time snapshot of the storage server configuration prior to replication. To use Auto Save: 1. Right-click the server and choose Properties. 2. Click the Auto Save Config tab and enter information automatically saving your storage server system configuration. Manually Save the Configuration You can manually save your system configuration any time you make a change in the console, including any time you add/change/ delete a client or resource, assign a client, or make any changes to your failover/mirroring/replication configuration. If you add a server to a client from the Client Monitor (or via command line for Linux clients), you should also re-save your configuration. To re-save your configuration: 1. Highlight a storage server in the Tree. 2. Go to File > Save Configuration. 3. Enter a filename and location. Creating a folder only supports single-byte characters. For double-byte characters, create a folder from Explorer before saving the configuration. Note 16

25 Chapter 3: Management Console Restoring a Configuration You can restore a storage server configuration from a file that was created using the Save Configuration option. This is for disaster recovery purposes and should not be used in day-to-day operation of the server. Changes made since the configuration was last saved is not included in this restored configuration. To restore the configuration: 1. Import the disks that were recovered from the damaged storage server to your new storage server. For more information, see Importing a Foreign Disk on page Highlight the new storage server in the tree. Make any changes to the server before restoring the configuration. 3. Go to File > Restore Configuration. 4. Confirm and locate the file that was saved. The storage server restarts. 5. Rescan any physical or virtual devices that changed after saving the configuration. To rescan a device, right-click Physical Resources and choose Rescan. Licensing Warning Restoring a configuration overwrites the existing virtual device and client configurations for that server. Storage server partition information cannot be restored. Use this feature should only if your configuration is lost or corrupted. Lost virtual devices can result in lost data. To license VTrak S3000 and its options: 1. Obtain your VTrak S3000 keycodes from Promise. 2. In the console, right-click the server (VTrak appliance) and choose License. The License Summary window is informational only and displays a list of the options supported for this server. You can enter keycodes for your purchased options on the Keycode Detail window. 17

26 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 3. Click the Add button on the Keycodes Detail tab to enter each keycode. 4. If your licenses have not been registered yet, click the Register button on the Keycodes Detail tab. Registration is automatic if you have an Internet connection. To register offline, you must: Save the registration information to a file on your hard drive. it to Promise s registration server. To complete the registration, when you receive a reply from Promise: Save the attachment to your hard drive. Send the attachment to the registration server to complete the registration. Setting Server Properties To set properties for a specific server: 1. Right-click the server and choose Properties. Note If multiple administrators are logged into a storage server at the same time, license changes made from one console take effect in other console only when the administrator disconnects and reconnects to the server. The tabs you see depends upon your storage server configuration. 2. If you have multiple network interface cards (NICs) in your server, enter the IP addresses on the Server IP Addresses tab. If the first IP address stops responding, the VTrak S3000 client attempts to communicate with the server using the other IP addresses you have entered in the order they are listed. Important For the clients using an alternate IP address, your subnet must be set so that the subnet itself can redirect traffic to the proper alternate NIC. You can assign only one NIC within the same subnet. If you add IP addresses in the console while the client is running, you must rescan devices (Windows clients) or restart the client (Linux clients) to make the client aware of the new IP addresses. 3. On the Activity Database Maintenance tab, indicate how often the SAN data should be purged. 18

27 Chapter 3: Management Console The Activity Log is a database that tracks all system activity, including: Data read Data written The number of read commands The number of write commands The number of errors This information is used to generate SAN information for the VTrak S3000 reports. 4. On the SNMP Maintenance tab, indicate which types of messages to sent as traps to your SNMP manager. 19

28 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Five levels of messages are available: None (Default) No messages are sent. Critical Only errors that prevent the system from operating properly are sent. Error Errors (resource not available or operation failed) and Critical messages are sent. Warning Warnings (maintenance or corrective action required), Error and Critical messages are sent. Informational All messages, Warnings, Error, and Critical messages are sent. 5. On the iscsi tab, set the iscsi portal that your system should use as default when creating an iscsi target. If you have multiple NICs, when you create an iscsi target, this IP address is set for by default. 6. If necessary, change settings for mirror resynchronization and replication on the Performance tab. The settings on this tab affect system performance. The defaults should be optimal for most configurations. You should only need to change the settings for special situations, such as if your mirror is remotely located. Mirror Synchronization: Use [n] outstanding commands of [n] KB The number of commands being processed at one time and the I/O size. This must be a multiple of the sector size. Synchronize Out-of-Sync Mirrors Determine how often the system should check and attempt to resynchronize active out-of-sync mirrors, how often it should retry synchronization if it fails to complete, and whether or not to include replica mirrors. These setting are only used for active mirrors. If a mirror is suspended because the lag time exceeds the acceptable limit, that resynchronization policy applies instead. Replication: TCP or RUDP TCP is the default replication protocol unless the connecting server does not support TCP. If you want to update the protocol for existing replication jobs or for an entire server, click the Update Protocol button. Timeout replication after [n] seconds Timeout after inactivity. This value must be the same on both the primary and target replication servers. Throttle The maximum amount of bandwidth used for replication. This is a global server parameter and affects all resources using either remote or local replication. Throttle does not affect manual replication scans; it only affects actual replication. It also does not affect continuous replication, which uses all available bandwidth. Leaving the Throttle field set to 0 (zero) means that the maximum available bandwidth is used. Besides 0, valid input is 10 to 1,000,000 KB/s (1 GB). Enable DeltaScan DeltaScan analyzes each replication block on-the-fly during replication and transmits only the changed sections on the block. This is beneficial if the network transport speed is slow and the client makes small random updates to the disk. The global DeltaScan option overrides the DeltaScan setting for individual virtual devices. 7. Click the Auto Save Config tab to enter information automatically and save the storage server system configuration. 20

29 Chapter 3: Management Console You can set your system to automatically replicate your system configuration to an FTP server on a regular basis. Auto Save takes a point-in-time snapshot of the storage server configuration prior to replication. Important The target FTP server you specify in the Ftp Server Name field must be installed and enabled. Target Directory The directory on the FTP server where the files are stored. The directory name you enter here is a directory on the FTP server, for example, ftp:\vtrak config. Do not enter an absolute path, such as c:\vtrak config. Username The name that the user logs in with. You must create this user on the FTP site. This user must have read/ write access to the directory named here. Interval Specifies how often to replicate the configuration. Set the interval to match how frequently you make configuration changes to VTrak S3000. You can also save manually, if needed. To save the configuration manually, highlight your storage server in the Tree, choose File > Save Configuration. Number of Copies The maximum copies to keep. The oldest copy is deleted when a new copy is added. 8. On the Location tab, you can enter the specific physical location of the machine. You can also choose an image, smaller than 500 KB, to identify the server location. Once the location information is saved, the new tab displays in the Management Console for that server. Managing Accounts Only the root user can manage users and groups or reset passwords. You must add an account for each person who has administrative rights in VTrak S3000. You must also add a user account for clients that access storage resources from a hostbased application. To make account management easier, you can group users together and manage them simultaneously. Note You cannot manage accounts or reset a password when a server is in failover state. Viewing Users and Groups To view users and groups: Right-click the server and choose Accounts. 21

30 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual A list of users and administrators appears on the Users tab. A list of groups appears on the Groups tab. Adding a User To add a user: 1. Right-click the server and choose Accounts. 2. Click the Users tab. 3. Click the Add button. 4. Enter the name for the user. The username must follow the naming convention of the operating system running on the storage server. Refer to the OS s documentation for naming restrictions. 5. Enter a password for the user. Enter it again in the Confirm Password field. For iscsi clients and host-based applications, the password must be 12 to 16 characters. The password is case sensitive. 6. Specify the type of account. Users and Administrators have different levels of permissions on the VTrak S3000. VTrak S3000 Admins Can perform any VTrak S3000 operation other than managing accounts. They are also authorized for VTrak S3000 client authentication. VTrak S3000 Users Can manage the virtual devices and allocate space from the storage pools assigned to them. They can also create new SAN resources, clients, and groups; assign resources to clients, and join resources to groups for which they are authorized. VTrak S3000 users can only view resources to which they are assigned. When a VTrak S3000 user creates a new SAN resource, client, or group, access rights are automatically granted for the user to that object. 7. Specify a quota, if desired. Quotas enable the administrator to control the amount of storage used by groups, users, hosts and host-based applications. A user s quota limits how much space is allocated to this user for auto-expansion. Resources managed by this user can only auto-expand to the limit of user s quota. 8. Click OK to save the settings Adding a Group To add a group: 1. Right-click the server and choose Accounts. 2. Click the Groups tab. 3. Click the Add button. 4. Enter a name for the group. Do not use spaces or special characters in the name. 5. Specify a quota, if desired. The quota limits how much space is allocated to each user in this group. The group quota overrides any individual user quotas. 6. Click OK to save the information. Adding Users to Groups A user can belong to only one group. You can add users to groups on both the Users and Groups tabs. To add a user on the Users tab: 1. Right-click the server and choose Accounts. 2. Click the Users tab. 3. Highlight the user. 4. Click the Membership button. To add a multiple users to a group: 1. Right-click the server and choose Accounts. 2. Click the Groups tab. 3. Highlight a group and click the Membership button. 22

31 Chapter 3: Management Console Setting a User Quota A quota limits how much space is allocated to each user. If the user belongs to a group, the group quota overrides the user quota. To change a user s quota: 1. Right-click the server and choose Accounts. 2. Click the Users tab. 3. Highlight the user whose quota you want to set. 4. Specify the quota for this user. 5. Click OK to save the setting. Setting a Group Quota A quota limits how much space is allocated to each group. The group quota overrides the user quota. To change a group s quota: 1. Right-click the server and choose Accounts. 2. Click the Groups tab. 3. Highlight the group whose quota you want to set. 4. Specify the quota for this group. 5. Click OK to save the setting. Resetting a User Password This feature affects all users except the root user. To change the root user s password, see Changing the Root User s Password, below. To change a user s password: 1. Right-click the server and choose Accounts. 2. Click the Users tab. 3. Highlight the user whose password you want to reset. 4. Enter a password for the user. Enter it again in the Confirm Password field. For iscsi clients and host-based applications, the password must be 12 to 16 characters. The password is case sensitive. 5. Click OK to save the setting. Changing the Root User s Password You must be logged into the server as the root user to change the root user s VTrak S3000 password. To change the root user s password: 1. Log into the server as root. 2. Right-click the server and choose Change Password. 3. Enter a password for the user. Enter it again in the Confirm Password field. For iscsi clients and host-based applications, the password must be 12 to 16 characters. The password is case sensitive. 4. Click OK to save the setting. Checking Connectivity between the Server and Console This test determines whether your network connectivity is good. To check connectivity, right-click the server (VTrak appliance) and choose Connectivity Test. If your network connection is faulty, the test might fail. See your Network Administrator for help in diagnosing and solving the problem. Adding an iscsi User or Mutual CHAP User Only the Root User can add an iscsi User or Mutual CHAP User. To add an iscsi user or Mutual CHAP User: 1. Right-click the iscsi server and choose iscsi Users. 2. Click the Add button. The iscsi User add dialog screen displays. 23

32 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 3. Enter a password for the user. Enter the password again in the Confirm Password field. For iscsi clients and host-based applications, the password must be 12 to 16 characters. The password is case sensitive. 4. Click the OK button. Deleting an iscsi User or Mutual CHAP User Only the Root User can delete an iscsi User or Mutual CHAP User. To delete an iscsi user or a Mutual CHAP User: 1. Right-click the iscsi server and choose iscsi Users. 2. Highlight the user to be deleted. 3. Click the Delete button. 4. Click the OK button. Resetting a CHAP Secret The Mutual CHAP enables the target and initiator authenticate each other. A different secret is required for each target and for each initiator in the SAN. The Root User can reset the CHAP secret of an iscsi User or Mutual CHAP User. VTrak S3000 Administrators and Users can change the CHAP secret of an iscsi user if they know the original CHAP secret. To reset a CHAP secret: 1. Right-click the iscsi server and choose iscsi Users > Mutual CHAP User. 2. Enter the current CHAP secret. 3. Enter a new CHAP secret. 4. Click the OK button to save your setting. Applying Software Patches Apply patches (software updates) to your storage server through the console. Caution Adding a patch can be disruptive. I/Os might fail. Your server connection might be lost. To apply a patch: 1. Download the patch onto the computer where the console is installed. 2. Highlight a storage server in the Tree. 3. Choose Tools > Add Patch. The patch is copied to the server and installed. Rolling Back a Patch Caution Rolling back a patch can be disruptive. I/Os might fail. Your server connection might be lost. To remove (uninstall) a patch and restore the original files: 1. Highlight a storage server in the Tree. 2. Choose Tools > Rollback Patch. 24

33 Chapter 3: Management Console System Maintenance Tasks The Management Console enables you to perform maintenance on your storage server. The system maintenance options are hardware-dependent. Refer to your hardware documentation for specific information. Configuring the Network If you need to change storage server IP addresses, you must make these changes using Network Configuration. Caution Do not use YaST or any other third-party utility. Those utilities do not update the configuration correctly. 1. Right-click the server and choose System Maintenance > Network Configuration. 2. Enter the following information as required: Domain name Internal domain name. Append suffix to DNS lookup If a domain name is entered, it is appended to the machine name for name resolution. DNS IP address of the DNS server. Default gateway IP address of the default gateway. NIC List of Ethernet cards in the server. Enable Telnet Enable or disable Telnet service. Enable FTP Enable or disable FTP service. To use FTP, the storage server must have the pure-ftp package installed. Allow root to log in to telnet session Log in to your telnet session using root 3. Optional. Click Config NTP and enter from one to five IP addresses of Internet Network Time Protocol (NTP) servers. NTP synchronizes the date and time on your storage server with an Internet NTP server. 4. Click Config to configure each Ethernet card. If you choose Static, you must add addresses and net masks. MTU refers to the maximum transfer unit of each IP packet. If your card supports Jumbo Frames, set the value to Setting the Hostname To set a hostname: 1. Right-click the server and choose System Maintenance > Set Hostname. 2. Enter a new hostname. 3. Restart the server. Restarting VTrak S3000 To restart the VTrak server processes, right-click the server (VTrak appliance) and choose System Maintenance > Restart VTrak. Restarting the Network To restart your local network configuration, right-click the server (VTrak appliance) and choose System Maintenance > Restart Network. Rebooting the Server Important If you change the MTU from 9000 to 1500, a drop in performance occurs. If you then change the MTU back to 9000, you must restart the server for performance to increase again. Caution Do not change the hostname if you are using block devices. Reset the Hostname causes all block devices claimed by VTrak S3000 to be marked offline and seen as foreign devices. To reboot the Server, right-click the server (VTrak appliance) and choose System Maintenance > Reboot. 25

34 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Halting the Server Halting a server means shutting down the server without restarting it. To halt the Server, right-click the server (VTrak appliance) and choose System Maintenance > Halt. Choosing IPMI Options Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) is a hardware level interface that monitors various hardware functions on a server. If VTrak S3000 detects IPMI when the server boots up, you see several options in the IPMI sub-menu. Monitor IPMI monitoring displays the hardware information presented to VTrak S3000. To enable IPMI monitoring, right-click the server (VTrak appliance) and choose System Maintenance > IPMI > Monitor. With monitoring enabled, a red warning icon appears in the first column if there is a problem with a component. In addition, a red exclamation mark appears on the server. An Alert tab appears with details about the error. Information is updated every five minutes. To update more frequently, click the Refresh button. Filter This feature enables you to exclude components that you do not want to monitor. Filtering a component eliminates unnecessary errors, such as when you do not have the hardware being monitored. To filter IPMI monitoring: 1. Right-click the server and choose System Maintenance > IPMI > Filter. 2. Enter the Name of the component you do not want to monitor exactly as it appears in the hardware monitor. Physical Resources Physical resources are the actual devices attached to this storage server: The SCSI adapters tab displays the adapters attached to this server. The SCSI Devices tab displays the SCSI devices attached to this server. These devices can include hard disks, tape libraries, and RAID subsystems. For each device, the tab displays used and available disk capacities and the SCSI address of the device, comprised of: Adapter number Channel number SCSI ID LUN If you are using Multipathing, entries for the alternate paths are also displayed. The Storage Pools tab displays a list of defined storage pools including the total size and number of devices in each pool. The Persistent Binding tab displays the binding of each storage port to its unique SCSI ID. When you highlight a physical device, the Category field in the right pane describes how the device is used. Possible values are: Reserved for virtual device A hard disk not assigned to a SAN Resource or Snapshot area. Used by virtual devices A hard disk used by one or more SAN Resources or Snapshot areas. Reserved for service-enabled device A hard disk with existing data not assigned to a SAN Resource. Used by service-enabled device A hard disk with existing data assigned to a SAN Resource. Unassigned An unreserved physical resource. Not available for VTrak S3000 A miscellaneous SCSI device not used by a storage server, such as a scanner or CD- ROM. System A hard disk with mounted system partitions, such as swap file or a file system installed. Reserved for Striped Set - Used in a disk striping configuration. Physical Resource Icons The following table describes the icons that are used to describe physical resources: Icon Description Device Icons 26

35 Chapter 3: Management Console Icon Description The T icon indicates that this is a target port. The I icon indicates that this is an initiator port. The V icon indicates that this disk has been virtualized or is reserved for a virtual disk. The D icon indicates that this is a direct device or is reserved for a direct device. The S icon indicates that this is a service enabled device or is reserved for a service enabled device. The a icon indicates that this device is used in the logical resource that is currently being highlighted in the Tree. The red arrow indicates that this Fibre Channel HBA is down and cannot access its storage. Storage Pool Icons The V icon to the left of the device indicates that this storage pool is comprised of virtual devices. An S icon would indicate that it is comprised of service enabled devices. The C icon to the right of the device indicates that this storage pool is designated for HyperCache-W resources. The G icon to the right of the device indicates that this is a general purpose storage pool which can be used for any type of resource. The H icon to the right of the device indicates that this storage pool is designated for HyperCache-R resources. The N icon to the right of the device indicates that this storage pool is designated for snapshot resources. Failover and Cross-mirror icons The R icon to the right of the device indicates that this storage pool is designated for continuous replication resources. The S icon to the right of the device indicates that this storage pool is designated for SAN resources and their corresponding replicas. The physical disk appearing in color indicates that it is local to this server. The V indicates that the disk is virtualized for this server. If there were a Q on the icon, it would indicate that this disk is the quorum disk that contains the configuration repository. The physical disk appearing in black and white indicates that it is a remote physical disk. The F indicates that the disk is a foreign disk. 27

36 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Preparing Devices to become Logical Resources You can use one of the disk preparation options to change the category of a physical device. Preparation is required to create a logical resource using a device that is currently unassigned. The storage server detects new devices when you connect to it. When a device is detected, a dialog box to notify you of the new device. At this point you can highlight a device and press the Prepare Disk button to prepare it. The Physical Devices Preparation Wizard helps you to virtualize, service-enable, unassign, or import physical devices. Unassigned devices are listed under the Physical Resources/Adapters node of the Tree. To prepare a single unassigned device: 1. Highlight the device. 2. Right-click, choose Properties and choose the device category. To prepare multiple unassigned devices: 1. Highlight Physical Resources. 2. Right-click and choose Prepare Disks. The wizard launches and enables you to virtualize, unassign, or import multiple devices at the same time. Renaming a Physical Device You can rename a physical device. When a device is renamed on a server in a failover pair, the device gets renamed on the partner server also. However, it is not possible to rename a device when the server has failed over to its partner. To rename a device: 1. To rename a device, right-click the device and choose Rename. 2. Type the new name and press Enter. Rescanning Adapters To rescan all adapters: 1. Right-click Physical Resources and choose Rescan. If you only want to scan a specific adapter, right-click the adapter and choose Rescan. 2. Determine what you want to rescan. Discover New Devices Set the range of adapters, SCSI IDs, and LUNs that you want to scan. 28

37 Chapter 3: Management Console Discover new devices only without scanning existing devices Discover only new devices. Does not scan any existing devices. Use Report LUNs The system sends a SCSI request to LUN 0 and asks for a list of LUNs. Note that this SCSI command is not supported by all devices. LUN Range The system sends a SCSI request to the range of LUNs that you specify. Stop scan when a LUN without a device is encountered Scans LUNs sequentially and stops after the last LUN is found. Use this option only if all of your LUNs are sequential. Auto detect FC HBA SCSI ID Scans Fibre Channel HBAs. Ignores the range of SCSI IDs specified and automatically detects the SCSI IDs with persistent binding. Importing a Foreign Disk VTrak S3000 recognizes physical device as a foreign disk when a virtualized physical device contains logical resources previously set up on a different storage server. You might need to import a foreign disk if a storage server is damaged and you want to import that server s disks to another storage server. To import a single foreign disk, right-click the foreign disk and choose the Import option. VTrak S3000 scans the disk s partition table and attempts to reconstruct the virtual drive out of the segments. To import a virtual drive constructed from multiple foreign disks, right-click Physical Resources and choose Prepare Disks. The wizard launches and enables you to import multiple disks at the same time. As each drive is imported, the drive is marked Offline because it has not yet found all of the segments. Once all of the disks belonging to the virtual drive are imported, the virtual drive is re-constructed and marked Online. Importing a disk: Preserves the data on the disk. Does not preserve the client assignments. Therefore, after importing a foreign disk, do one of the following actions: Reassign clients to the resource. Go to File > Restore Configuration. Important When you import a disk, the virtual ID, such as SANDisk-00002, may be different from the original server. Therefore, you should use the GUID to identify the disk. If you are importing a disk that can be seen by other storage servers, rescan the disk before importing. Otherwise, you may have to rescan after performing the import. 29

38 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Testing Physical Device Throughput You can test the following for your physical devices: Sequential throughput Random throughput Sequential I/O rate Random I/O rate Latency To check the throughput for a device: 1. Under Physical Resources, right-click the device. 2. Choose Test from the menu. The system tests the device and displays the throughput results on a new Throughput tab. SCSI Aliasing SCSI aliasing works with the Multipathing option to eliminate a potential point of failure in your storage network by providing multiple paths to your storage devices using multiple Fibre Channel switches and/or multiple adapters and/or storage devices with multiple controllers. In a multiple path configuration, VTrak S3000 automatically detects all paths to the storage devices. If one path fails, VTrak S3000 automatically switches to another. Repairing Paths to a Device Repair is the process of removing one or more physical device paths from the system and then adding them back. Repair may be necessary when a device is not responsive which can occur if a storage controller has been reconfigured or if a standby alias path is offline or disconnected. If a path is faulty, adding it back might be impossible. To repair paths to a device: 1. Right-click the device and choose Repair. If all paths are online, the following message displays instead, There are no physical device paths that can be repaired. 2. Choose the path for repair. If the path is still missing after the repair or the entire physical device disappears from the console, the path could not be repaired. Investigate the cause, correct the problem, and then rescan adapters with the Discover New Devices option. Logical Resources Logical resources are all of the resources defined on the storage server, including SAN Resources, and Groups. SAN Resources SAN logical resources consist of sets of storage blocks from one or more physical hard disk drives. This enables the creation of logical resources that contain a portion of a larger physical disk device or an aggregation of multiple physical disk devices. 30

39 Chapter 3: Management Console Clients do not gain access to physical resources; they only have access to logical resources. This means that an administrator must configure each physical resource to one or more logical resources so that they can be assigned to the clients. When you highlight a SAN Resource, you see a small icon next to each device that is being used by the resource. In addition, when you highlight a SAN Resource, you see a GUID field in the right pane. The GUID (Global Unique Identifier) is the permanent identifier for this virtual device. The virtual ID, SANDisk-00002, is not. Make note of the GUID, because in the event of a disaster, you use the GUID to rebuild your system and import this disk. Groups Groups are groups of virtual drives and service enabled drives that are grouped together for HyperCache-W or snapshot synchronization purposes. For example, when one drive in the group is to be replicated or backed up, the entire group is snapped together to maintain a consistent image. Logical Resource Icons The following table describes the icons that are used to show the status of logical resources: Icon Description This icon indicates a warning, such as: Virtual device offline (or has incomplete segments) Mirror is out of sync Mirror is suspended Snapshot rollback failed Replication failed One or more supporting resources is not accessible, including HyperCache-W, Snapshot resource, and HyperCache-R. This icon indicates an alert, such as: Replica in disaster recovery state (after forcing a replication reversal) Cross-mirror need to be repaired on the virtual appliance Primary replica is no longer valid as a replica Invalid replica Write Caching You can leverage a disk subsystem s built-in caching mechanism to improve I/O performance. Write caching enables the disk subsystem to use its internal cache to accelerate I/O. To enable write caching for a resource: Right-click the resource and choose Write Cache > Enable. Replication The Incoming and Outgoing objects under the Replication object display information about each server that replicates to this server or receives replicated data from this server. A white icon means the partner server is connected or logged in. A yellow icon means the partner server is not connected or not logged in. When you highlight the Replication object, the right pane displays a summary of replication to or from each server. For each replica disk, you can promote the replica or reverse the replication. SAN Clients SAN Clients are the actual file and application servers that utilize the storage resources via the storage server. These SAN Clients access their storage resources via: iscsi initiators for iscsi HBAs for Fibre Channel or iscsi 31

40 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual The storage resources appear as locally attached devices to the SAN Clients operating systems (Windows, Linux, or VMware) even though the devices are actually located at the storage server site. When you highlight a specific SAN client, the right-hand pane displays the Client ID, type, and authentication status, as well as information about the client machine. The Resources tab displays a list of SAN Resources that are allocated to this client. The adapter, SCSI ID and LUN are relative to this VTrak S3000 SAN client only. Other clients that have access to the SAN Resource might have different adapter, SCSI ID, or LUN information. Changing the ACSL You can change the Adapter, Channel, SCSI, and LUN (ACSL) for a SAN Resource assigned to a SAN client if the device is not currently attached to the client. To change ACSL: 1. Under the SAN Client object, right-click the SAN Resource and choose Properties. 2. Enter a new adapter ID, SCSI ID, or LUN. Granting Access to a SAN Client By default, only the root user and VTrak S3000 admins can manage SAN resources, groups, or clients. While VTrak S3000 users can create new SAN Clients, if you want a VTrak S3000 user to manage an existing SAN Client, you must grant that user access. To grant user access: 1. Right-click a SAN Client and choose Access Control. 2. Choose a user to manage this SAN Client. A SAN Client can only be assigned to one VTrak S3000 user. The user has rights to perform any function on the SAN Client, including assigning, adding protocols, and deleting. Webstart for Java Console In cases where you need to access the storage server from a machine that does not have the Management Console installed, you can download and install the Management Console. To download and install the Management Console: 1. Open a web browser on the machine you wish to install the console. 2. Type in the IP address of the storage server you wish to access. If Java is not detected, an prompt appears for installing the appropriate version of JRE. If you are using Windows Server 2008 or Vista and plan to use the Promise Management Console, use the Java console (with Java 1.6) for best results. If a security warning displays regarding the digital signature for the java applet, click Run to accept the signature. Once detected, the Management Console automatically installs. If you plan to reuse the console on this machine, repeat steps 1 and 2 above or create a shortcut from Java when prompted. To make sure you are prompted to create a shortcut to the java Webstart: 1. Go to the Start menu and choose Control Panel > Java. The Java control panel launches. 2. Click the Advanced tab. 3. Under Shortcut Creation, click the Prompt user or the Always allow option. Console Options To set options for the console: 1. Choose Tools > Console Options. Notes Use the SAN Resource under the SAN Client object, not the SAN Resources object. Windows clients: One SAN Resource for each client must have a LUN of 0. Otherwise, the operating system does not see the devices assigned to the SAN client. Linux clients: One SAN Resource for each client must have a LUN of 0 and the rest of the LUNs must be sequential. 32

41 Chapter 3: Management Console 2. Make any necessary changes. Remember password for session If the console is already connected to a server, when you open a second, third, or subsequent server, the console uses the credentials as the last successful connection. If this option is unchecked, you are prompted to enter a password for every server you open. Automatically time out servers after nn minutes The console collapses a server that has been idle for the number of minutes you specify. The default is 10 minutes. Enter 00 minutes to disable the timeout. To access the server after it times out, you must reconnect to it. Update statistics every nn seconds The console updates statistics at the frequency you specify. Automatically refresh the event log every nn seconds The console updates the event log at the frequency you specify, but only when you are viewing it. Console Log Options The console log is kept on the local machine and stores information about the local version of the console. The console log is displayed at the very bottom of the console screen. The options affect how information for each console session is maintained: Overwrite log file Overwrite the information from the last console session when you start a new session. Append to log file Keep all session information. Do not write to log file Do not maintain a console log. Creating a Custom Menu You can create a menu in the Management Console from which you can launch external applications. A custom menu adds to the convenience by allowing your Administrators to start their applications from a single place. The custom menu appears between Tools and Help in your console along with the normal menu. To create a custom menu: 1. Choose Tools > Set up Custom Menu. 2. Click Add and enter the information needed to launch this application: Label The application title that displays in the custom menu. Command The file (usually an.exe) that launches the application. Argument An argument that is passed to the application. If you are launching an Internet browser, the argument could be a URL. Icon The graphic file for the icon of this application. 33

42 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual The menu icon displays in the custom menu. 34

43 Chapter 4: Storage Pools This chapter covers the following topics: Managing Storage Pools (page 35) Creating Storage Pools (page 35) Setting Properties for a Storage Pool (page 36) A storage pool is a group of one or more physical devices. Creating a storage pool enables you to provide all of the space needed by your clients in a very efficient manner. You can create and manage storage pools in a variety of ways, including: Tiers Performance levels, cost, or redundancy Device categories Virtual, service enabled, direct Types Primary storage, Journal, Cache, HyperCache-R, virtual headers, Snapshot, and configuration Specific application use Applications that are not part of the VTrak S3000 server For example, you can classify your storage by tier (low-cost, high-performance, high-redundancy, etc.) and assign it based on these classifications. Using this example, you may want to have your business critical applications use storage from the highredundancy or high-performance pools while having your less critical applications use storage from other pools. Storage pools work with all automatic allocation mechanisms in VTrak S3000. This capacity-on-demand functionality automatically allocates storage space from a specific pool when storage is needed for a specific use. As your storage needs grow, you can easily extend your storage capacity by adding more devices to a pool and then creating more logical resources or allocating more space to your existing resources. The more space is immediately and seamlessly available. Managing Storage Pools Only root users and VTrak S3000 administrators can manage storage pools. The root user and the VTrak S3000 Administrator have full privileges for storage pools. The root user or the VTrak S3000 Administrator must create the pools first and then the VTrak S3000 Users can manage them. VTrak S3000 Users can create virtual devices and allocate space from the storage pools assigned to them but they cannot create, delete, or modify storage pools. The rights of each are summarized in the table below: Type of Administrator Create and Delete Pools Add or Remove Storage from a Pool Assign Rights to VTrak S3000 Users Create, Modify, Delete Logical Resources Assign Storage to Clients Root User x x x x x VTrak S3000 Administrator x x x x x VTrak S3000 User x VTrak S3000 Users can only modify or delete logical resources that they created. x Creating Storage Pools Physical devices must be prepared, virtualized and service enabled, or reserved for a direct device, before they can be added into a storage pool. Each storage pool can only contain the same type of physical devices. Therefore, a storage pool can contain only virtualized drives or only service-enabled drives or only direct devices. A storage pool cannot contain mixed types. Physical devices that have been allocated for a logical resource can still be added to a storage pool. 35

44 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual To create a storage pool: 1. Right-click Storage Pools and choose New. 2. Enter a name for the storage pool. 3. Indicate which type of physical devices to be used in this storage pool. Each storage pool can only contain one type of physical device. 4. Choose the devices that are assigned to this storage pool. Physical devices previously allocated to another logical resource can still be added to a storage pool. 5. Click OK to create the storage pool. Setting Properties for a Storage Pool To set storage pool properties: 1. Right-click a storage pool and choose Properties. On the General tab you can change the name of the storage pool and add/delete devices assigned to this storage pool. 36

45 Chapter 4: Storage Pools 2. Click the Type tab to designate how each storage pool should be allocated. The type affects how each storage pool is allocated. When you are in an VTrak S3000 creation wizard, the applicable storage pools are presented for selection. However, you can still choose from another storage pool type, if needed. All Types Can be used for any type of resource. Storage Preferred storage pool to create SAN resources and their corresponding replicas. Snapshot Preferred storage pool for snapshot resources. Cache Preferred storage pool for HyperCache-W resources. HyperCache-R Preferred storage pool for HyperCache-R resources. Journal Preferred storage pool for VTrak S3000 resources and VTrak S3000 resource mirrors. VirtualHeader Preferred storage pool for the virtual header that is created for a service enabled device SAN Resource. Configuration Preferred storage pool to create the configuration repository for failover. 3. Click the Tag tab to set a tag string that limits client side applications to specific storage pools. When an application requests storage with a specific tag string, only the storage pools with the same tag can be used. It is also possible to have your own internal application that has been programmed to use a tag. 37

46 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 4. Click the Security tab to designate which users and administrators can manage this storage pool. Each storage pool can be assigned to one or more Users or Groups. The assigned users can create virtual devices and allocate space from the storage pools assigned to them but they cannot create, delete, or modify storage pools. 38

47 Chapter 5: Logical Resources This chapter covers the following topics: Types of SAN Resources (page 39) Creating SAN Resources and Procedures (page 41) Preparing Devices to Become SAN Resources (page 41) Creating a Virtual Device SAN Resource (page 41) Creating a Direct Device or Service-Enabled Device (page 46) Assigning a SAN Resource (page 48) Expanding a Virtual Device (page 52) Granting Access to a SAN Resource (page 54) Once you have connected your physical SCSI or Fibre Channel (FC) devices to your storage server you are ready to create Logical Resources to be used by your VTrak S3000 clients. This configuration can be done entirely from the Promise Management Console. Logical Resources are logically mapped devices on the storage server. They are comprised of physical storage devices, known as Physical Resources. Physical resources are the actual SCSI and/or FC devices, such as hard disks, tape drives, and RAID subsystems that are connected to the server. Clients do not have access to physical resources. Clients have access only to logical resources. This means that a physical resource must be defined as a logical resource before it can be assigned to the clients. SAN resources provide storage for file and application servers, called SAN clients. When a SAN resource is assigned to a SAN client, a virtual adapter is defined for that client. The SAN resource is assigned a virtual SCSI ID on the virtual adapter. This is the same configuration as actual SCSI storage devices and adapters, allowing the operating system and applications to treat them like any other SCSI device. Types of SAN Resources SAN Resources are of three types: Virtual devices Direct devices Service-enabled devices Virtual devices VTrak S3000 has the ability to aggregate multiple physical storage devices, such as RAID and JBOD subsystems through various interface protocols, such as SCSI or Fibre Channel, into logical storage pools. From these storage pools, you can create virtual devices and provision them to application servers and end users. This process is called storage virtualization. Virtual devices are defined as sets of storage blocks from one or more physical disk drives. This enables the creation of virtual devices that can be a portion of a larger physical disk drive, or an aggregation of multiple physical disk drives. Virtual devices offer the added capability of disk expansion. more storage blocks can be appended to the end of existing virtual devices without erasing the data on the disk. Virtual devices can only be assembled from hard disk drives. You cannot assemble a virtual device from CD-ROM, tape, libraries, or removable media. When a virtual device is allocated to an application server, the server recognizes the virtual device as a SCSI storage device. Virtual devices are assigned to virtual adapter 0 (zero) when mapped to a client. If there are more than 15 virtual devices, a new adapter is defined. Virtual devices can be created using various combining and splitting methods, although you probably do not create them in this manner in the beginning. You may end up with devices like this after growing virtual devices over time. Thin Provisioning Thin Provisioning enables storage space to be assigned to clients dynamically, on a just-enough and just-in-time basis, determined by the need. Thin Provisioning avoids under-utilization of storage by applications while allowing for expansion in the long-term. The maximum size of a disk, or virtual SAN resource, with thin provisioning enabled is limited to 16,777,146 MB. You 39

48 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual can expand a thin disk up to the maximum size of 16,777,146 MB. When expanded, the mirror on it automatically expands also. A replica on a thin disk is able to use space on other virtualized devices as long as there is available space. If space is not available for expansion, the thin provisioned disk on primary is prevented from expanding and a message displays on the console indicating why expansion is not possible. The minimum permissible size of a thin disk is 10 GB. Once the threshold is met, the thin disk expands in 10 GB increments. With Thin Provisioning, a single pool of storage can be provisioned to multiple client hosts. Each client sees the full size of its provisioned disk while the actual amount of storage used is much smaller. Because so little space is actually being used, Thin Provisioning enables resources to be over-allocated, meaning that more storage can be provisioned to hosts than actually exists. Because each client sees the full size of its provisioned disk, Thin Provisioning is the ideal solution for users of legacy databases and operating systems that cannot handle dynamic disk expansion. The mirror of a disk with thin provisioning enabled is another disk with thin provisioning enabled. When a thin disk is expanded, the mirror also automatically expands. The mirrored disk must be online in order to expand the thin disk manually. If the mirror is offline when the threshold of 512MB is met, automatic expansion does not function until the offline mirror is removed and automatic expansion retries. Then automatic expansion is successful and the storage is automatically added. However, you must manually create a new mirror. A replica on a thin disk can use space on other virtualized devices as long as space is available. If there is no space available for expansion, the thin disk on the primary is prevented from expanding and a message displays on the console. Check the Status of a Thin Disk You can check the status of the thin disk from the Management Console by highlighting the thin disk and clicking the General tab. The usage percentage is displayed in different colors: Green for usage less than 70% Blue for usage between 70 and 85% Red indicates no more space available for expansion. 40

49 Chapter 5: Logical Resources Service-Enabled Devices Service-enabled devices (SEDs) are physical disk drives with existing data that can be accessed by VTrak S3000 and make use of storage services, such as mirroring and snapshot, without any migration, copying, and data modification, with minimal downtime. SEDs are used to migrate existing drives into the SAN. Because SEDs are preserved intact, and existing data is not moved, the devices are not virtualized and cannot be expanded. SEDs are maintained in a one-to-one mapping relationship, that is one physical disk equals one logical device. Unlike virtual devices, they cannot be combined or split into multiple logical devices. Creating SAN Resources and Procedures SAN resources are created in the Promise Management Console. Caution Do not perform disk defragmentation on a thin provisioned disk. Doing so can cause data from the used sectors of the disk to be moved into unused sectors and result in unexpected space usage increase. Any disk or filesystem utility that scans or accesses an unused sector could also cause a similar unexpected space usage increase. Important After you make any configuration changes, you must rescan or restart the client in order for the changes to take effect. After you create a new virtual device, assign it to a client, and restart the client or rescan, you must write a signature, create a partition, and format the drive so the client can use it. Preparing Devices to Become SAN Resources You can use one of VTrak S3000 s disk preparation options to change the category of a device. This is important if you want to create a logical resource using a device that is currently unassigned. VTrak S3000 appliances detect new devices as you connect to them (or when you execute the Rescan command). When new devices are detected, a dialog box displays notifying you of the discovered devices. At this point you can highlight a device and press the Prepare Disk button to prepare it. To prepare a single unassigned device by following the steps below: 1. Highlight the device 2. Right-click the device and choose Properties. 3. Choose a device category. All unassigned devices are listed under the Physical Resources/Adapters node of the Tree. For multiple unassigned devices, right-click Physical Resources and choose Prepare Disks. The wizard launches and enables you to virtualize, unassign, or import multiple devices at the same time. Creating a Virtual Device SAN Resource Each storage server supports a maximum of 1024 SAN resources. To create a virtual device SAN resource: 1. Right-click SAN Resources and choose New. 2. Choose Virtual Device. 41

50 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 3. Choose a storage pool or physical devices from which to create the SAN resource. You can create a SAN resource from any single storage pool. Once you create the resource, you can allocate more space only from the same storage pool. Check the List All box to see all storage pools, if needed. Click the Next button to continue. 4. Check the Use Thin Provisioning box to allocate a minimum amount of space for a virtual resource. When usage thresholds are met, more storage is allocated as necessary. Click the Next button to continue. 5. Specify the fully allocated size of the resource to be created. The default initial allocation is 10,240 MB. Thin provisioning is supported for the following resource types: SAN Virtual SAN Virtual Replica SAN resources can replicate to a disk with thin provisioning as long as the size of the SAN resource is 10GB or greater. Click the Next button to continue. 42

51 Chapter 5: Logical Resources 6. Choose a method to create the virtual device. Custom You choose which physical devices to use and designate how much space to allocate from each. Express You designate how much space to allocate and the software automatically creates a virtual device using an available device. Batch You create multiple SAN resources at one time. All of these SAN resources are the same size. Click the Next button to continue. 43

52 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual If you chose Custom, you see the following windows: Choose either an entirely unallocated or partially unallocated device. You can choose only one device at a time from this dialog box. To create a virtual device SAN resource from multiple physical devices, you must add the devices one at a time. After choosing the parameters for the first device, you can add more devices. Indicate how much space to allocate from this device. Click the Add More button to add another physical device to this SAN resource. 44

53 Chapter 5: Logical Resources If you chose Batch, you see a window similar to the one below. Enter a name for the resource in the SAN Resource Prefix field. That name is combined with the starting number to form the name of each SAN resource. To restart numbering from one, UNcheck the Use default ID for Starting Number box. In the Resource Size field, indicate how much space in MB to allocate for each resource. In the Number of Resources field, indicate how many SAN resources to create. 7. Express and Custom only. Enter a name for the new SAN resource. The name is not case sensitive. 8. Confirm that all information is correct and click the Finish button. 9. Express and Custom only. Indicate if you want to assign the new SAN resource to a client. If you click Yes, the Assign a SAN Resource Wizard launches. Important After you assign the SAN resource to a client, you might need to restart the client. You must write a signature, create a partition, and format the drive before the client can use it. 45

54 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Creating a Direct Device or Service-Enabled Device To create a direct device or a service-enabled device: 1. Right-click SAN Resources and choose New. 2. Choose one of the following options: Virtual Device Service Enabled Device If you are creating a service-enabled device, check the box to preserve the physical device s inquiry string. Preserving the inquiry string treats the physical device as the original physical disk drive, rather than a VTrak S3000 device. This option is for vendors who only recognize their own storage devices. 3. Choose how to create this device. Custom Choose one physical device Batch Create multiple SAN resources at one time 4. Choose the device to make into a direct device or service-enabled device. A list of the storage pools and physical resources that have been reserved for this purpose are displayed. For direct devices, both hard disk and non-hard disk devices are shown. 46

55 Chapter 5: Logical Resources 5. Service-enabled devices only. Choose the physical devices for the service-enabled device s virtual header. Even though service-enabled devices are used as is, a virtual header is created to support VTrak S3000 storage services. 6. Enter a name for the new SAN resource. The name is not case sensitive. 7. Confirm that all of the information is correct and then click the Finish button. 8. Indicate if you want to assign the new SAN resource to a client. If you chose Yes, the Assign a SAN Resource Wizard launches. 47

56 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Assigning a SAN Resource You can assign a SAN Resource to one or more clients, or you can assign a client to one or more SAN resources. The Wizards are launched differently but the outcome is the same. 1. Right-click a SAN Resources object and choose Assign. Or right-click a SAN client and choose Assign. 2. If this server has multiple protocols enabled, choose the type of client to which you assign to this SAN resource. 3. Choose the client to be assigned and determine the client s access rights. If you initiated the wizard by right-clicking a SAN client, choose the SAN resources instead. Read/Write Only one client can access this SAN Resource at a time. All others, including Read Only, are denied access. This is the default setting. Read/Write Non-Exclusive Two clients can connect at the same time with both read and write access. Use this option only for clustered servers. The cluster prevents multiple clients from writing at the same time. Read Only Client has read only access to the SAN Resource. This option is useful for a read-only disk. Caution Be careful using the Read/Write Non-Exclusive option. If multiple clients write to a device at the same time, your data could become corrupted. For Fibre Channel clients, the following screen appears: Important In a Fibre Channel environment, we recommend that only one VTrak S3000 client be assigned to a SAN Resource with Read/Write access. If two or more Fibre Channel clients attempt to connect to the same SAN Resource, error messages are generated each time the second client attempts to connect. If multiple Windows 2000 clients are assigned read-only access to the same virtual device, the only partition they can read from is FAT. 48

57 Chapter 5: Logical Resources For iscsi clients, the following screen appears: You must create a target before you assign a SAN resource for this client. 4. If this is a Fibre Channel client using Multipathing software, such as PerfectPath, enter the World Wide Port Name (WWPN) mapping. This WWPN mapping is similar to Fibre Channel zoning and enables you to provide multiple paths to the storage server to limit a potential point of network failure. You can choose how the client sees the virtual device in the following ways: One to One Limits visibility to a single pair of WWPNs. Choose the client s FC initiator WWPN and the server s FC target WWPN. One to All Choose the client s FC initiator WWPN. All to One Choose the server s FC target WWPN. All to All Creates multiple data paths. If ports are added to the client or server, they are automatically included in the WWPN mapping. 49

58 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 5. If this is a Fibre Channel client with One to One or One to All mapping, choose the initiator port for this client. 6. If this is a Fibre Channel client with All to One or One to One mapping, choose the target port for this client. 7. Confirm the information and click the Finish button. The SAN resource now appears under the SAN client in the Tree: After Client Assignment Depending upon the operating system of the client, you may be required to reboot the client machine to use the new SAN resource. Windows Clients If an assigned SAN resource is larger than 3 GB, format the resource as an NTFS partition. Do not format as FAT. Label Devices To mount a new virtual device, you must label the device and install a file system. Specify the drive metrics. A file system must be on the virtual device to mount it. Important For filesystems larger then 2 TB, you must partition the disk as GPT. If you partition the disk as MBR, only 2 TB of storage is accessible. 50

59 Chapter 5: Logical Resources Note If the drive is already labeled and you restart the client, you do not need to run format and label it again. Creating a File System on a Disk Managed by VTrak S3000 Caution Be sure to choose the correct raw device when creating a file system. Check with your IT Administrator. To create a file system on a disk managed by VTrak S3000: 1. Log in as the root user. 2. Create a new file system. Execute the following command: mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdd 3. Create a mount point for the new file system. Execute the following command: mkdir /mnt/sandisk 4. Mount the disk managed by the VTrak S3000 software. Execute the following command: mount /dev/sdd /mnt/sandisk For further information, refer to the man pages. Virtual device from a different server When assigning a virtual device from a different storage server, you must restart the SAN Client software in order to add the virtual device to the client machine. The reason for this is that when virtual devices are added from other storage servers, a new virtual SCSI adapter gets created on the client machine. 51

60 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Expanding a Virtual Device Since virtual devices do not represent actual physical resources, they can be expanded as more storage is needed. The virtual device can be increased in size by adding more blocks of storage from any unallocated space on the same server. Note that after expanding the virtual device, you must repartition the virtual devices and adjust, create, or resize any file systems on the partition. Since partition and file-system formats are specific to the operating system that the client is running, the administrator must perform these tasks directly from the client. You can use tools like Partition Magic, Windows Dynamic Disk, or Veritas Volume Manager to add more drives to expand existing volume on-the-fly in real time, that is without application down time. Important We do not recommend expanding a virtual device (SAN) while clients are accessing the drives. See information about Windows dynamic disks and Fibre Channel clients at the end of this chapter. 1. Right-click a SAN virtual device and choose Expand. 2. Choose how you want to expand the virtual device. Custom You choose which physical devices and designate how much space to allocate. Express You designate how much space to allocate. The software creates a virtual device from an available device. Size to Allocate Maximum space available on all available devices. If this drive is mirrored, the value one-half the stated amount. 52

61 Chapter 5: Logical Resources If you choose Custom, the following windows appear. Choose either: An entirely unallocated device A partially unallocated device To expand a virtual device from multiple physical devices, you must add the devices one at a time. After choosing the parameters for the first device, you can add more devices. Indicate how much space to allocate from this device. If this drive is mirrored, you can only select up to half of the available total space from all available devices. Click the Add More button to use space from another physical device. 3. Confirm all information and click the Finish button. Windows Dynamic Disks Expansion of dynamic disks using the Expand SAN Resource Wizard is not supported for clients using Fibre Channel. Due to the nature of dynamic disks, it is not safe to alter the size of the virtual device. However, dynamic disks do provide an alternative method to extend the dynamic volume. To extend a dynamic volume using SAN resources: 1. Create a new SAN Resource and assign it to the VTrak S3000 Client. The resource becomes an more disk used to extend the dynamic volume. 2. Use Disk Manager to write the disk signature and upgrade the disk to Dynamic. 3. Use Disk Manager to extend the dynamic volume. The new SAN resource should be available in the list box of the Dynamic Disk expansion dialog box. 53

62 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Windows Fibre Channel Clients For Windows 2000 and 2003 clients, after expanding a virtual device you should rescan the physical devices from the Computer Manager to see the expanded area. Linux Fibre Channel Clients To remove and reinstall the module, and create a second partition: 1. Log in as the root user. 2. Execute the command rmmod qla2x Execute the command modprobe qla2x Execute the command parted /dev/sda. The a in sda refers to the first disk. Use b, c, and so on for subsequent disks. Granting Access to a SAN Resource By default, only the root user and VTrak S3000 administrators can manage SAN resources, groups, or clients. VTrak S3000 users can create new SAN resources. If you want a VTrak S3000 user to manage an existing SAN resource, you must grant the user access. Each SAN resource can only be assigned to one VTrak S3000 user. The VTrak S3000 user has rights to perform any function on this SAN resource, including assigning, configuring for storage services, and deletion. To grant a VTrak S3000 user access to an existing SAN resource: 1. Right-click a SAN resource and choose Access Control. 2. Choose the user to manage this SAN resource. If a SAN resource is already assigned to a client, you can only grant access to the SAN resource if the user is already assigned to the client. If the user is not assigned to the client, you must: 1. Unassign the SAN resource. 2. Change the access for both the client and the SAN resource. 3. Reassign the SAN resource to the client. Unassigning a SAN Resource from a Client 1. Right-click the client or client protocol and choose Unassign. 2. Choose the resources and click Unassign. Note When you unassign a Linux client, the client might be temporarily disconnected from the server. If the client has multiple devices offered from the same server, the disconnection might affect these devices. However, once I/O activities from those devices are detected, the connection is restored automatically and transparently. Deleting a SAN Resource To delete a SAN resource for Windows 2000/2003, and Linux clients: 1. Disconnect or un-mount the client from the SAN resource. 2. In the Console, right-click the SAN resource, and choose Delete. 54

63 Chapter 6: Logs and Reports This chapter covers the following topics: Viewing the Event Log (page 55) Generating Reports (page 58) Report Types (page 63) Client Throughput Report (page 63) Delta Replication Status Report (page 64) Disk Space Usage Report (page 64) Disk Usage History Report (page 65) Fibre Channel Configuration Report (page 67) Physical Resources Configuration Report (page 68) Physical Resources Allocation Report (page 68) Physical Resource Allocation Report (page 69) Resource I/O Activity Report (page 69) SCSI Channel Throughput Report (page 70) SCSI Device Throughput Report (page 71) SAN Client Usage Distribution Report (page 72) SAN Client/Resources Allocation Report (page 73) SAN Resources Allocation Report (page 74) SAN Resource Usage Distribution Report (page 74) Server Throughput and Filtered Server Throughput Report (page 75) Storage Pool Configuration Report (page 77) User Quota Usage Report (page 77) Global Replication Reports (page 78) The VTrak S3000 appliance retains information about the health and behavior of the physical and virtual storage resources on the storage network. It maintains an Event Log to record system events and errors. The VTrak appliance also maintains performance data on the individual physical storage devices and SAN resources. This data can be filtered to produce various reports through the Promise Management Console. Viewing the Event Log The Event Log details significant occurrences during the operation of the storage server. To view the Event Log: 1. In the Management Console, highlight a Server in the Tree 2. Click the Event Log tab in the right pane. The event log displays and resembles Figure 1. 55

64 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Figure 1. A sample event log The following table explains the log. Column Type Date Time ID Event Message Meaning I Informational message. No action is required. W Warning. Something occurred requiring maintenance or a corrective action. The storage server system is still operational. E Error. A failure has occurred and as a result: A resource is not available. An operation has failed. There is a licensing violation. Corrective action is required. C Critical Error. A failure has occurred and the system is no longer operating properly. Any critical errors are displayed when you log into the server from the console. The date on which the event occurred. The time at which the event occurred. The message identification number. A text description of the event describing what has occurred. Sorting Information in the Event Log When you initially view the Event Log, all information is displayed in chronological order with the most recent at the top. Resorting events helps you identify how often a particular event occurs. To reverse the chronological order, click the Date heading. To sort the events by urgency, click the Type heading. To sort events by ID number, click the ID heading. To sort events by message, click the Event Message heading. Resorting events helps you identify how often a particular event occurs. 56

65 Chapter 6: Logs and Reports Choosing Event Log Options By default, all events are displayed for all system components. To change event reporting: 1. Right-click a Server and choose Event Log > Options. The Event Log Options dialog box appears. 2. Uncheck any Event Types or Categories you do NOT want reported. 3. Click the OK button to save your settings. To search for specific events: 1. Right-click a Server and choose Event Log > Filter. The Event Log Options dialog box appears. 2. Choose a criterion from the Search Options dropdown menu. 3. Type one or more words in the String field. 4. Optional. Check the Case Sensitive box as required. 5. Click the Apply button. To view a series of events: 1. Right-click a Server and choose Event Log > Filter. The Event Log Options dialog box appears. 2. Choose an option Click Number of Lines and specify a number in the Lines field. Click Last and specify a number of hours. Click Date Range, choose events from the dropdown menus, and specify the dates in the fields provided. 3. Click the Apply button. Refreshing the Event Log To refresh the current Event Log, right-click the Server and choose Event Log > Refresh. 57

66 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Printing and Exporting the Event Log You can print the Event Log or save it as a text file. To print or export the Event Log: 1. In the Management Console, highlight a Server in the Tree. 2. Click the Event Log tab in the right pane to display the event log. 3. Right-click the Server and choose Event Log Options. 4. Choose the Print or the Export option. Generating Reports The VTrak S3000 appliance provides reports covering a wide variety of information: Performance and throughput By SAN client, SAN resource, SCSI channel, and SCSI device. Usage and allocation By SAN client, SAN resource, Physical resource, and SCSI adapter. System configuration Physical resources. Replication reports Run an individual report for a single server or run a global report for multiple servers. Individual reports are viewed from the Reports object in the console. Global replication reports are created from the Servers object in the console. Creating Individual Reports To create an individual report: 1. Right-click the Reports object and choose New. The Report Wizard launches. 2. Click the Next button to continue. The Select a Report Type dialog box appears. 3. In the dialog box, highlight the report you want and click the Next button. Depending upon which report you choose, more windows appear to allow you to filter the information for the report. Descriptions of each report appear on the following pages. 58

67 Chapter 6: Logs and Reports 4. Click the reporting schedule option you want. One time only Daily Weekly Monthly To set a report purge policy for your report, check the Purge the report after box and specify a time interval in the menus. 5. Click the Next button 6. Choose the schedule frequency, duration, and start time. Then click the Next button. 59

68 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Figure 2. Daily report options Figure 3. Weekly report options 60

69 Chapter 6: Logs and Reports Figure 4. Monthly report options 7. If applicable, choose a date or date range for the report. Indicate which SAN resources and clients to use in the report. Past 30 Days or Past 7 Days Reports data relative to the time of execution. Include All SAN Resources and Clients Reports all current and previous configurations for this Server, including SAN Resources and Clients that you may have changed or deleted. Include Current Active SAN Resources and Clients Only Reports only currently configured SAN Resource and Clients for this Server. Delta Replication Status Lets you specify a range by choosing start and end dates. 8. If applicable, choose the objects necessary to filter the information from the Data Selection Criteria dropdown menu. Depending upon the report chosen, you might have to choose from a list of storage servers, SCSI adapters, SCSI devices, SAN clients, SAN resources, or replica resources. 9. If applicable, choose which columns to display in the report and in which sort order. Depending upon which report you choose, you might be able to choose which column fields to display. All available fields are chosen by default. You can also choose whether you want the data sorted in ascending or descending order. 61

70 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Click the Next button to continue. 10. In the next dialog box, enter a name for the report into the Report Name: field. 11. Confirm all information and click the Next button. Viewing Reports When you create a report, the report displays in the right pane under the Reports object in the Tree. Expand the Reports object to see the existing reports available for this Server. When you choose an existing report, the report displays in the right pane. Exporting Data from a Report You can save the data from the server and device throughput and usage reports. 62

71 Chapter 6: Logs and Reports The data can be saved as: A comma delimited (.csv) file A tab delimited (.txt) text file To export information, right-click a generated report and choose Export. Scheduling Reports Reports can be generated on a regular basis or as needed. Some tips on scheduling: The start and end dates in the report scheduler are inclusive. When scheduling a monthly report, be sure to choose a date that occurs in every month. For example, if you choose to run a report on the 31st day, the report is not generated on months with fewer than 31 days. When scheduling a report to run every n days in chosen months, the first report is generated on the first of the month and then every n number of days after. For example, if you chose 30 days (n = 30) and there are not 30 days left in the month, the schedule jumps to the first day of the next month. Some reports allow you to select a range of dates from the day you are generating the report for the past n number of days. If you choose for the past one day, the report is generated for one day. Report Types The reporting feature includes many useful reports including allocation, usage, configuration, and throughput. A description of each report follows. Client Throughput Report The SAN Resource tab displays the amount of data read and written between this client and SAN resource. To see information for a different SAN resource, choose a different Resource Name from the dropdown menu in the lower right corner. The Data tab shows the data on a graph. Figure 5. A sample Client Throughput Report: 63

72 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Delta Replication Status Report This report displays information about replication activity, including compression, encryption, DeltaScan and protocol. It provides a centralized view for displaying real-time replication status for all disks enabled for replication. It can be generated for an individual disk, multiple disks, source server or target server, for any range of dates. This report is useful for administrators managing multiple servers that either replicate data or are the recipients of replicated data. The report can display information about existing replication configurations only. Or it can include information about replication configurations that have been deleted or promoted. You must choose all replication activities in the database. Figure 6. A sample Delta Replication Status report: Figure 7. A sample Replication Status Summary report Disk Space Usage Report This report shows the amount of disk space being used by each SCSI adapter. The Disk Space Usage tab displays a pie chart showing the following usage amounts: Storage Allocated Space Snapshot Allocated Space Cache Allocated Space HyperCache-R Allocated Space Journal Allocated Space CDR Allocated Space Configuration Allocated Space Total Free Space 64

73 Chapter 6: Logs and Reports Figure 8. A sample Disk Space Usage report The Data tab breaks down the information for each physical device. The Utilization tab breaks down the information for each logical device. Disk Usage History Report This report enables you to create a custom report with the statistical history information collected. You must enable Statistic Log to generate this report. The data is logged once a day at a specified time. The data collected is a representative sample of the day. In addition, if servers are set up in as a failover pair, you must enable the Disk Usage History log on both servers for data to be logged during failover. In a failover state, the data logging time set on the secondary server is followed. Choose the reporting period range, whether to include the disk usage information from the storage pools, and the sorting criteria. 65

74 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Figure 9. A sample report showing Usage History Figure 10.A sample report showing Detailed History 66

75 Chapter 6: Logs and Reports Figure 11. A sample report showing Disk Usage History Fibre Channel Configuration Report This report displays information about each Fibre Channel adapter, including type, WWPN, mode initiator or target and a list of all WWPNs with client information. Figure 12.A sample Fibre Channel Configuration report: 67

76 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Physical Resources Configuration Report This report lists all of the physical resources on this Server, including each physical adapter and physical device. To make this report more meaningful, you can rename the physical adapter. For example, instead of using the default name, you can use a name such as Target Port A. Figure 13.A sample Physical Resources Configuration report: Physical Resources Allocation Report This report shows the disk space usage and layout for each physical device. Figure 14.A sample Physical Resources Allocation report 68

77 Chapter 6: Logs and Reports Physical Resource Allocation Report This report shows the disk space usage and layout for a specific physical device. Figure 15.A sample Physical Resource Allocation report: Resource I/O Activity Report The Resource I/O Activity Report shows the input and output activity of chosen resources. The report options and filters allow you to choose the SAN resource and client to report on within a particular date and time range. You can view a graph of the I/O activity for each SAN resource including errors, delayed I/O, data, and configuration information. The Data tab shows the tabular data that was used to create the graph. The Configuration Information tab shows which SAN resources and clients were included in the report. Figure 16.A sample of the Resource I/O Activity report showing read and write I/Os. 69

78 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Figure 17.A sample Resource I/O Activity report showing data results SCSI Channel Throughput Report The SCSI Channel Throughput Report shows the data going through each SCSI channel on the Server. This report can be used to determine which SCSI bus is heavily utilized and/or which bus is under utilized. If a particular bus is too heavily utilized, it may be possible to move one or more devices to a different or new SCSI adapter. Some SCSI adapters have multiple channels. Each channel is measured independently. During the creation of the report, you choose which SCSI channel to include in the report. Figure 18.Activity report options The SAN Resource tab displays a graph showing the throughput of the channel. The horizontal axis displays the time segments. The vertical axis measures the total data transferred, reads and writes, through the chosen SCSI channel. The System tab displays the CPU and memory utilization for the same time period as the main graph. 70

79 Chapter 6: Logs and Reports The Data tab shows the tabular data that was used to create the graphs. Figure 19.A sample SCSI Channel Throughput report: SCSI Device Throughput Report The SCSI Device Throughput Report shows the utilization of the physical SCSI storage device on the Server. This report can show if a particular device is heavily utilized or under utilized. During the creation of the report, you choose which SCSI device to include. The SAN Resource tab displays a graph showing the throughput of the SCSI device. The horizontal axis displays the time segments. The vertical axis measures the total data transferred through the chosen SCSI device, in each time segment for both reads and writes. The System tab displays the CPU and memory utilization for the same time period as the main graph. The Data tab shows the tabular data that was used to create the graphs. 71

80 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Figure 20.A sample SCSI Device Throughput report: SAN Client Usage Distribution Report The Read Usage tab of the SAN Client Usage Distribution Report displays a bar chart that shows the amount of data read by Clients of the current Server. The chart shows three bars, one for each Client. The Read Usage % tab displays a pie chart showing the percentage for each Client. The Write Usage tab displays a bar chart that shows the amount of data written to the Clients. The chart shows three bars, one for each active Client. The Write Usage % tab displays a pie chart showing the percentage for each Client. 72

81 Chapter 6: Logs and Reports Figure 21.A sample page from a SAN Client Usage Distribution report: SAN Client/Resources Allocation Report For each Client chosen, this report displays information about the resources assigned to the Client, including disk space assigned, type of access, and breakdown of physical resources. Figure 22.A sample SAN Client / Resources Allocation report: 73

82 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual SAN Resources Allocation Report This report displays information about the resources assigned to each Client, including disk space assigned, type of access, and breakdown of physical resources. Figure 23.A sample SAN Resources Allocation report: SAN Resource Usage Distribution Report The Read Usage tab displays a bar chart that shows the amount of data read from each SAN Resource associated with the current Server. The chart shows six bars, one for each SAN Resource (in order of bytes read). The Read Usage % tab displays a pie chart showing the percentage for each SAN Resource. The Write Usage tab displays a bar chart that shows the amount of data written to the SAN Resources. The Write Usage % tab displays a pie chart showing the percentage for each SAN Resource. Figure 24.A sample page from a SAN Resource Usage Distribution report: 74

83 Chapter 6: Logs and Reports Server Throughput and Filtered Server Throughput Report The Server Throughput Report displays the overall throughput of the Server. The Report takes a subset of Clients and/or SAN resources and displays the throughput of that subset. When creating this report, you can specify which SAN resources and which Clients to include. When these reports are created, there are several tabs of information. The SAN Resource tab displays a graph showing the throughput of the Server. The horizontal axis displays the time segments. The vertical axis measures the total data transferred in each time segment for both reads and writes. Figure 25.The SAN Resource tab of the Server Throughput report The System tab displays a graph showing memory and CPU usage measured at specific intervals. The Data tab displays a list showing memory and CPU usage measured at specific intervals. This information helps the administrator identify time periods where the load on the Server is greatest. Combined with the other reports, the specific device, client, or SAN resource that contributes to the heavy usage can be identified. 75

84 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Figure 26.The System tab of the Server Throughput report Figure 27.The Data tab of the Server Throughput report The Configuration Information tab shows which SAN resources and clients are included in the report. 76

85 Chapter 6: Logs and Reports Storage Pool Configuration Report This report shows detailed Storage Pool information. You can choose the information to display in each column as well as the order. Reported data includes: Device Name SCSI Address Sectors Total in MB Used in MB Available in MB Figure 28.A sample Storage Pool Configuration report User Quota Usage Report This report shows a detailed description of the amount of space used by each resource from the chosen users on the current server. You can choose the information to display in each column, the sort order, and the user on which to report information. Report columns include: ID Resource Name Type Category Size in MB Figure 29.A sample User Quota Usage report 77

86 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Global Replication Reports While you can run a replication report for a single server from the Reports object, you can also run a global report for multiple servers from the Servers object. From the Servers object, you can also create a report for a single server, consolidate existing reports from multiple servers, and create a template for future reports. Creating Global Reports To create a global replication report: 1. To run a global replication report, right-click the Servers object and choose Replication Status Reports > New. 2. When prompted, enter a date range for the report and indicate whether you want to, Use a saved template to create this report. Define this report as you go through the wizard. 3. Choose the servers to include in the report. 4. Choose the resources to include from each server. Be sure to choose each primary server (resource) from the dropdown menu. 5. Choose the type of information you want to appear in the report and the order. Click the up and down arrows to order the information. 6. Click in the Sorting field to alternate among, Ascending Descending Not Sorted You can also click the up and down arrows to change the sorting order of the columns. 7. Give the report a name and indicate where to save it. You can also save the current report template for future use. 8. Review all information and click the Finish button. Viewing Global Reports The group replication report opens in its own window. You can change what is displayed, the sort order, and export data or print. 78

87 Chapter 7: iscsi Clients This chapter covers the following topics: Supported Platforms (page 79) Requirements (page 79) Configuring iscsi Clients (page 79) Creating Storage Targets for the iscsi Client (page 84) Disabling iscsi (page 85) iscsi clients are the file and application servers that access VTrak S3000 SAN resources using the iscsi protocol. Just as the VTrak S3000 appliance supports different types of storage devices, such as Fibre Channel and iscsi, the VTrak S3000 appliance is protocol-independent and supports multiple outbound target protocols, including iscsi Target Mode. This chapter provides an overview for configuring iscsi clients with VTrak S3000. iscsi follows the SCSI standard over an IP network. The entity making requests is called an initiator. The entity responding to requests is called a target. The initiator and target never change roles and each initiator or target has a unique name. By default, when a client machine is added as an iscsi client of a VTrak S3000 appliance, it becomes an iscsi initiator. Supported Platforms iscsi Target Mode is supported for iscsi initiators on the following platforms: Windows VMware Linux Requirements The following requirements are valid for all iscsi clients regardless of platform: Install an iscsi initiator on each of your client machines. iscsi software or hardware initiators are available from many sources. Refer to the Promise certification matrix for a list of supported iscsi initiators. Do not install any storage server client software on the client unless you are using a snapshot agent. Configuring iscsi Clients The following sections provide an overview for configuring iscsi clients with VTrak S3000. Refer to the documentation provided by your iscsi initiator for detailed instructions. Enabling iscsi To add a client using the iscsi protocol, you must enable iscsi for your storage server. In the Management Console, right-click your storage server and choose Options > Enable iscsi. When iscsi is enabled, a new SAN client called Everyone_iSCSI is automatically created on your storage server. This is a special SAN client that does not correspond to any specific client machine. Using the Everyone_iSCSI client, you can create iscsi targets that are accessible by any iscsi client connected to the storage server. Before an iscsi client can be served by a VTrak S3000 appliance, the two entities need to recognize each other. The following sections take you through this process. Configuring your iscsi Initiator Register your iscsi client as an initiator to your storage server. This action enables the storage server to see the initiator. To do this, you launch the iscsi initiator on the client machine and identify your storage server as the target server. Enter the IP address or name of your storage server. Refer to the documentation provided by your iscsi initiator for detailed instructions. 79

88 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual For Linux clients, you might have to start or restart the initiator after configuration. Adding iscsi Clients to the Management Console To add iscsi clients to the Management Console: 1. Right-click SAN Clients and choose Add. 2. Choose the protocol for the client you want to add. 3. Choose the initiator that this client uses. If the initiator does not appear, rescan. You can also manually add it, if necessary. 4. Choose the initiator or choose the client to have mobile access. Note If there are multiple IP addresses, a dialog box prompts you to choose the IP address over which the iscsi target is accessed. 80

89 Chapter 7: iscsi Clients Stationary iscsi clients correspond to specific iscsi client initiators. Consequently, the client machine owns the specific initiator names. Only a client machine with the correct initiator name can connect to the storage server and access resources assigned to this stationary client. 5. Add or choose users to authenticate for this client. The user name defaults to the initiator name. You must enter the CHAP secret. Click the Advanced button to add existing users to this target. For unauthenticated access, click the Allow Unauthenticated Access option. With unauthenticated access, the storage server recognizes any client with an authorized initiator name. With authenticated access, an additional check is added that requires the user to type in a user name and password. You can add multiple user name and password pairs to the client. But they are only useful when coming from the machine with an authorized initiator name. Check the Enable Mutual CHAP secret box if you want the target and the initiator to authenticate to each other. A separate secret is set for each target and each initiator. 6. Enter the name of the client in the Client Name field. Choose the operating system from the Client Type dropdown menu. Check the Is Clustered box if the client machine is part of a cluster. Important Be careful to enter the correct client name, with the proper spelling. 7. Click the Find button to locate the client machine. 81

90 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual The IP address of the machine with the specified host name is automatically filled in if the name is resolvable. 8. Optional. Check the Enable Persistent Reservation box to enable this feature. This option enables clustered SAN Clients to take advantage of Persistent Reserve and Release to control disk access between various cluster nodes. 82

91 Chapter 7: iscsi Clients 9. Confirm your information and click the Finish button. 83

92 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Creating Storage Targets for the iscsi Client To create a storage target for an iscsi client: 1. In the Management Console, right-click the iscsi protocol object for an iscsi client and choose Create Target. 2. Enter a new target name for the client in the Target Name field, or accept the default name. Important The Microsoft iscsi initiator can only connect to an iscsi target if the target name is 221 characters or less. 3. Check the box in the IP Address List for the IP addresses of the storage server to which this client can connect. If your iscsi initiator has multipathing support, you can choose multiple IP addresses if your iscsi initiator has multipathing support, such as the Microsoft initiator version 2.0. If you chose a default portal in Server Properties, that IP address is chosen for you. 4. From the Access Mode dropdown list, choose an access mode. Read/Write Only one client can access this SAN Resource at a time. All others, including Read Only, are denied access. Read/Write Non-Exclusive Two or more clients can connect at the same time with both read and write access. Use this option only for clustered servers. The cluster prevents multiple clients from writing at the same time. Read Only This client has only read access to the SAN Resource. This option is useful for a read-only disk. 5. Choose the SAN resources to be assigned to the client. If you have not created any SAN resources yet, you can assign them at a later time. You might need to restart the iscsi initiator afterwards. 6. Use the default starting LUN. Once the iscsi target is created for a client, LUNs can be assigned under the target using available SAN Resources. 7. Confirm your information and click the Finish button. Restarting the iscsi initiator In order for the client to be able to access its storage, you must: Linux clients Restart the iscsi initiator Windows clients Log the client onto the target Caution Be careful using the Read/Write Non-Exclusive option. If multiple clients write to a device at the same time, your data could become corrupted. 84

93 Chapter 7: iscsi Clients If you want a persistent target, refer to your iscsi initiator documentation for instructions. Windows iscsi Clients and Failover The Microsoft iscsi initiator has a default retry period of 60 seconds. You must change it to 300 seconds in order to sustain the disk for five minutes during failover so that applications are not disrupted by temporary network problems. This setting is changed through the registry. To change the iscsi retry interval: 1. Go to Start > Run and type regedit. 2. Find this following registry key, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\system\CurrentControlSet\control\class\4D6E97B-xxxxxxxxx\<iscsi adapter interface>\parameters\ Where iscsi adapter interface corresponds to the adapter instance, such as 0000, 0001, and so on. 3. Right-click Parameters and choose Export to create a backup of the parameter values. 4. Double-click MaxRequestHoldTime. 5. Choose Decimal and change the Value data to Click the OK button. 7. Reboot Windows for the change to take effect. Disabling iscsi To disable iscsi for an VTrak S3000 appliance: 1. In the Management Console, unassign all SAN resources from the iscsi clients. 2. Delete all iscsi clients except Everyone_iSCSI. 3. Right-click the server node and choose Options > Disable iscsi. 85

94 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 86

95 Chapter 8: Fibre Channel Target Mode This chapter covers the following topics: Supported Platforms (page 88) Installation and Configuration Overview (page 88) Configuring Fibre Channel Hardware on the Server (page 88) Configuring Fibre Channel Hardware on the Client (page 91) Disabling Fibre Channel Target Mode (page 93) Verifying the Fibre Channel WWPN (page 93) Setting QLogic Ports to Target Mode (page 94) QLogic NPIV HBAs (page 95) Setting NPIV Ports to Target Mode (page 95) Setting up your Failover Configuration (page 95) Installing and Running Client Software (page 95) Associating WWPNs with Clients (page 96) Assigning Virtualized Resources to Fibre Channel Clients (page 97) Triggering a Device Rescan (page 97) PerfectPath on your Client Machines (page 97) Spoofing an HBA WWPN (page 98) Configuring WWNN (page 98) VTrak S3000 support for the Fibre Channel (FC) protocol enables any FC-enabled system to take advantage of Promise s extensive storage capabilities such as virtualization, mirroring, replication, NPIV, and security. Support is offered for all FC topologies including, Point-to-Point, Fabric, and Arbitrated Loop. This chapter provides configuration information for Fibre Channel Target Mode as well as the associated FC SAN equipment, such as switch or a Sun T3. An application server can be either an iscsi client or a FC client, but not both. However, using separate cards and switches, you can have Fibre Channel and iscsi clients on your storage network. Figure 1. Fibre Channel architecture 87

96 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Supported Platforms The following platforms support FC target mode: Windows VMware Linux Installation and Configuration Overview The installation and configuration of Fibre Channel Target Mode involves several steps. Detailed information for each step appears in subsequent sections. 1. Prepare your Fibre Channel hardware. See Configuring Fibre Channel Hardware on Server below. 2. Enable FC target mode. 3. Optional. Set QLogic ports to target mode. 4. Optional. Set up your failover configuration. 5. Install and run client software and/or manually add Fibre Channel clients. 6. Optional. Associate World Wide Port Names (WWPN) with clients. 7. Assign virtualized resources to Fibre Channel Clients. 8. Trigger a device rescan or reboot client machine to access new devices. 9. Optional. Install and configure PerfectPath on your Client machines. Configuring Fibre Channel Hardware on the Server Ports VTrak S3000 supports the use of QLogic HBAs for the storage server. For a list of all supported HBAs, refer to the certification matrix on the Promise website. Your VTrak S3000 appliance is equipped with several Fibre Channel ports. The ports that connect to storage arrays are commonly known as Initiator Ports. The ports that interface with the backup servers' FC initiator ports run in a different mode known as Target Mode. Downstream Persistent Binding Persistent binding is automatically configured for all QLogic HBAs connected to storage device targets upon the discovery of the device (via a Console physical device rescan with the Discover New Devices option enabled). However, persistent binding is not set until the HBA is reloaded. To reload HBAs, restarting VTrak S3000, execute this command: VTrak restart all After the HBA has been reloaded and the persistent binding has been set, you can change the target port ID through the console. To change the target port ID, right-click Physical Resources or a specific adapter and choose Target Port Binding. Important Set persistent binding before you change the target-port ID from the console. 88

97 Chapter 8: Fibre Channel Target Mode Volume Set Addressing Some storage devices use Volume Set Addressing (VSA) mode. This addressing method is used primarily for addressing virtual buses, targets, and LUNs. VTrak S3000 supports up to 1024 LUN assignments per VSA client when VSA is enabled. For upstream, you can set VSA for the client at the time of creation. Or to modify the setting after creation, right-click the client. Zoning There are two types of zoning that can be configured on each switch: Hard Zoning Uses the port number of the switch. With hard zoning, if a zone has two ports, for example 0 and 1, and port 0 fails, you must remove the current zoning configuration, move the plug to another valid port, re-zone, and then enable the new zoning configuration. Soft Zoning Uses the WWPN in the configuration. The WWPN remains the same in the zoning configuration regardless of the port location. If a port fails, you can simply move the cable from the failed port to another valid port without having to reconfigure. The VTrak S3000 appliance requires isolated zoning where one initiator is zoned to one target in order to minimize I/O interruptions by unrelated FC activities, such as port login/out and resets. With isolated zoning, each zone can contain no more than two ports or two WWPNs. This applies to both initiator zones (storage) and target zones (clients). For example, for the case of upstream (to client) zoning, if there are two client initiators and two VTrak S3000 targets on the same FC fabric. And if you want to establish all four path combinations, you would use four specific zones, one for each path: Client_Init1 and VTrak S3000_Tgt1 Client_Init1 and VTrak S3000_Tgt2 Client_Init2 and VTrak S3000_Tgt1 Client_Init2 and VTrak S3000_Tgt2 You cannot create a single zone that includes all four ports. The four-zone method is cleaner because it does not allow the two client initiators nor the two VTrak S3000 target ports to see each other. This eliminates all of the potential issues such as initiators trying to log in to each other under certain conditions. The same should be done for downstream (to storage) zoning. If there are two VTrak S3000 initiators and two storage targets on the same fabric, there should be four zones: VTrak S3000_Init1 and Storage_Tgt1 VTrak S3000_Init1 and Storage_Tgt2 VTrak S3000_Init2 and Storage_Tgt1 VTrak S3000_Init2 and Storage_Tgt2 If hard zoning is used, you must create zones for each of the standby target ports. This means the total number of zones for the upstream is now doubled. This extra set of zones is not necessary for soft zoning because zones are defined by WWPN combinations. In a failover event, the standby ports assume the WWPNs of the target ports of the failed storage server. Therefore, the single set of soft zones is still valid. As an more note, make sure that storage devices are not zoned directly connected to the client. Instead, since VTrak S3000 provisions the storage to the clients: Target ports of the storage devices are zoned to the VTrak S3000 initiator ports. Clients are zoned to the VTrak S3000 target ports Make sure that from the storage unit s management GUI, such as SANtricity and NaviSphere, the LUNs are re-assigned to the storage server as the host. VTrak S3000 either: Virtualizes these LUNS If they are newly created without existing data Service-enables the LUNs Preserving existing data VTrak S3000 can then define SAN resources out of these LUNs and further provision them to the clients as service-enabled devices. Switches For the best performance, if you are using 4 or 8 Gigabit switches, all of your HBA cards should be 4 or 8 Gigabit cards. Check the certification matrix on the Promise website to see a complete list of certified cards. NPIV (point-to-point) mode is enabled by default. Therefore, all Fibre Channel switches must support NPIV. 89

98 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual QLogic HBAs Target mode settings The table below lists the recommended settings (changes are indicated in bold) for QLogic HBA target mode. These values are set in the fshba.conf file and override the values set through the BIOS settings of the HBA. For initiators, consult the Best Practice Guidelines as published by the storage subsystem vendor. If an initiator is used by multiple storage brands, choose a setting that best satisfies both brands. If that is not possible, consult Promise Technical Support for advice or separate the conflicting storage units to their own initiator connections. The table below shows the default and recommended target mode settings. Setting Name Default Value Recommended Value frame_size 2 (2048byte) 2 (2048byte) loop_reset_delay 0 0 adapter_hard_loop_id 0 0 but set to 1 if using arbitrated loop topology connection_option 1 (point to point) 1 (point to point) but set to 0 if using arbitrated loop topology hard_loop_id Make sure that both the primary target adapter and the secondary standby adapter (the failover pair) are set to the SAME value. fibre_channel_tape_support 0 (disable) 0 (disable) data_rate 2 (Auto) Based on the switch capability should be modified to either 0 (1 GB), 1 (2 GB), 2 (Auto), or 3 (4 GB) execution_throttle LUNs_per_target enable_lip_reset 1 (enable) 1 (enable) enable_lip_full_login 1 (enable) 1 (enable) enable_target_reset 1 (enable) 1 (enable) login_retry_count 8 8 port_down_retry_count 8 8 link_down_timeout extended_error_logging_flag 0 (no logging) 0 (no logging) interrupt_delay_timer 0 0 iocb_allocation enable_64bit_addressing 0 (disable) 0 (disable) fibrechannelconfirm 0 (disable) 0 (disable) class2service 0 (disable) 0 (disable) acko 0 (disable) 0 (disable) responsetimer 0 (disable) 0 (disable) fastpost 0 (disable) 0 (disable) driverloadrisccode 1 (enable) 1 (enable) q12xmaxqdepth (configurable through the Management Console) max_srbs

99 Chapter 8: Fibre Channel Target Mode Configuring Fibre Channel Hardware on the Client Persistent Binding Use persistent binding for all clients to all QLogic targets. Fabric Topology Setting Name Default Value Recommended Value q12xfailover 0 0 q12xlogintimeout 20 seconds 20 seconds q12xretrycount q12xsuspendcount q12xdevflag 0 0 q12xplogiabsentdevice 0 (no PLOGI) 0 (no PLOGI) busbusytimeout 60 seconds 60 seconds displayconfig 1 1 retry_gnnft recoverytime 10 seconds 10 seconds failbacktime 5 seconds 5 seconds bind 0 (by Port Name) 0 (by Port Name) qfull_retry_count qfull_retry_delay 2 2 q12xloopupwait When setting-up clients on a Fibre Channel network using a Fabric topology, we recommend that you set the topology for each HBA to Point-to-Point Only. If you are using a QLogic HBA, the topology is set through the QLogic BIOS: Go to Configure Settings > Extended Firmware settings > Connection Option > Point-to-Point Only. Important For QLogic HBAs, we recommend hard-coding the link speed of the HBA to match the switch speed. QLogic MPIO Driver Support For QLogic MPIO driver support on the client, the World Wide Node Name (WWNN) for all target ports on your storage server must be the same. By default, each target port has a unique WWNN. You must modify the WWNN for your Fibre Channel targets. Modify the WWNN before you configure failover. The WWNN field is grayed out if failover has already been configured. For more information on configuring the WWNN, see Configuring WWNN on page

100 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual HBA Failover Settings for FC Client Connectivity This section provides recommended settings for sustaining failover for various clients that are connected to VTrak S3000. For QLogic HBAs, you can modify the BIOS settings using the SANsurfer tool. We do not support FC port drivers. For all HBAs that support persistent binding, persistent binding should be configured. Check with the HBA vendor for persistent binding procedures. We recommend that you reboot to reload the driver, in order for changes to be made effective for most operating systems, including Windows and Linux. Below are tables of different types of HBAs for different types of clients. These settings apply for cluster and non-cluster environments unless specified. For any platforms that are not listed, please refer to the certification matrix on the Promise website. Windows HBA Card With PerfectPath Without PerfectPath QLogic Login Retry Count = 8 Port Down Retry Count = 8 Link Down Count = 30 Enable Target Reset = True FrameSize = 2048 Disk Timeout Value = 60 Execution Throttle = 32 LUNS per target = 256 Tape mode = Disable Login Retry Count = 255 Port Down Retry Count = 255 Link Down Count = 30 Enable Target Reset = True FrameSize = 2048 Disk Timeout Value = 255 Execution Throttle = 32 LUNS per target = 256 Tape mode = Disable Disk Timeout Value The Disk Timeout Value must be modified at the operating system level. To enter the disk timeout value: 1. Go to Start > Run. 2. Type regedit and press Enter to open the Windows Registry Editor. 3. From the directory tree, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CURRENTCONTROLSET > Services > Disk. 4. In the Disk folder, right-click and choose New > DWORD Value. 5. Rename from New Value #1 to TimeOutValue. 6. Right-click TimeOutValue and choose Modify. 7. Enter the Disk Timeout Value from the above table, choose the Decimal option and click OK. LUNS per Target The LUNS per target should now be set to 64. We can set this value to 256 because we use Report LUN upstream. However, this is dependent on your requirements and is based on the number of LUNs. Clustering For all Windows clustering and non-clustering configurations, install PerfectPath to sustain failover. 92

101 Chapter 8: Fibre Channel Target Mode Linux All Versions HBA Card With PerfectPath Without PerfectPath QLogic Login Retry Count = 8 Port Down Retry Count = 8 Link Down Count = 30 Enable Target Reset = True FrameSize = 2048 Execution Throttle = 32 LUNS per target = 256 Tape mode = Disable Login Retry Count = 255 Port Down Retry Count = 255 Link Down Count = 30 Enable Target Reset = True FrameSize = 2048 Execution Throttle = 32 LUNS per target = 256 Tape mode = Disable There are no OS level modifications to be made for a Linux client. Make the changes indicated above in the *.conf files for their respective HBAs. Important For Sun (qlc) drivers, you must install PerfectPath to enable the clients to sustain failover. The settings indicated above should be modified at the ql23xx driver line in the startup.ncf file. The /ALLPATHS and / PORTNAMES options are required if an upper layer module is going to handle failover (it expects to see all paths). The Port Down Retry Count and Link Down Retry is configurable in the BIOS whereas the /XRetry, /XTimeout, and /PortDown values are configured by the driver. The Port Down Retry Count and the /Portdown values combined are approximately the total disk timeout. Enabling Fibre Channel Target Mode To enable Fibre Channel Target Mode: 1. In the Console, highlight the storage server with the FC HBAs. 2. Right-click the Server and choose Options > Enable FC Target Mode. An Everyone FC client is created under SAN Clients. See Enabling Fibre Channel Target Mode on page 93 for more information. Disabling Fibre Channel Target Mode To disable Fibre Channel Target Mode: 1. Unassign all resources from the Fibre Channel client. 2. Remove the Fibre Channel client. 3. Switch all targets to initiator mode. 4. Right-click the Server and choose Options > Disable FC Target Mode. 5. Run this command, stop VTrak all. 6. Power off the server. 7. Optional. Remove the FC cards. 8. Run the VTrak Configtgt command and choose q for no Fibre Channel support. Verifying the Fibre Channel WWPN The World Wide Port Name (WWPN) must be unique for the Fibre Channel initiator, target, and the client initiator. To verify Fibre Channel WWPN, right-click the server (VTrak appliance) and choose Verify FC WWPN. If there are duplicate WWPNs, a message displays advising you to check your Fibre Channel configuration to avoid data corruption. 93

102 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Setting QLogic Ports to Target Mode By default, all QLogic point-to-point ports are set to initiator mode, meaning they initiate requests rather than receive them. Determine which ports you want to use in target mode and set them to become target ports so that they can receive requests from your Fibre Channel clients. Promise recommends that you have at least four Fibre Channel ports per server in initiator mode, one of which is attached to your storage device. Switch one of those initiators into target mode so your clients can see the storage server. Choose the equivalent adapter on the Secondary server and switch it to target mode. You must remove the attached device before you can switch a port from initiator mode to target mode. Note To set a port: 1. In the Management Console, expand Physical Resources. 2. Right-click an HBA and choose Options > Enable Target Mode. When the port has been placed in target mode, a Loop Up message displays. 3. Make a note of all of your WWPNs. It may be convenient for you to highlight your server and take a screenshot of the Console. 94

103 Chapter 8: Fibre Channel Target Mode QLogic NPIV HBAs With a N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) HBA, each port can be both a target and an initiator (dual mode). When using a NPIV HBA, there are two WWPNs, the base port and the alias. Notes Do not use the NPIV driver if you intend to directly connect a target port to a client host. With dual mode, clients must be zoned to the alias port, called Target WWPN. If clients are zoned to the base port, they cannot see any devices. When a port is in target mode, you only see the alias After all of the VTrak S3000 services are started, you only see the alias. NPIV enables multiple N_Port IDs to share a single physical N_Port. This arrangement enables us to have an initiator, a target, and a standby occupying the same physical port. This arrangement is not supported when using Multi-ID. As a failover setup best practice, do not put more than one standby WWPN on a single physical port. Do not use an adapter as standby for more than one target port when our target port driver is enabled for NPIV. Setting NPIV Ports to Target Mode Each NPIV port can be both a target and an initiator. To use target mode, you must enable target mode on a port. To use target mode, the port must be in NPIV mode. This was set automatically when you loaded the./vtrak configtgt/vtrak start hba driver. To set target mode: 1. In the Console, expand Physical Resources. 2. Right-click an NPIV HBA and choose Enable Target Mode. 3. Click OK to enable. You see two WWPNs listed for the port. Setting up your Failover Configuration If you plan to use the Failover option, and you have followed all of the steps in this Fibre Channel (FC) Target Mode section, you are now ready to launch the Failover Setup Wizard and begin configuration. For more information, see Chapter 11: Failover on page 109. HBAs and Failover Asymmetric failover modes are supported with QLogic HBAs. Failover with Multiple Switches When setting up FC failover using multiple FC switches, we recommend the following: If the multiple switches are connected via an FC port that acts as a management port for both switches, the primary storage server s Target Port and the secondary storage server s Standby Port can be on different switches. If the switches are not connected, or if they are not smart switches that can be managed, the primary storage server s Target Port and the secondary storage server s Standby Port must be on the same switch. Failover Limitations The following lists current limitations when using failover in FC environments: Using the same type of FC HBAs for all VTrak S3000 client hosts is recommended. Continuous discovery is not supported for Windows 2000, or for Windows 2003 clients configured for FC failover. Installing and Running Client Software Client software is only required for Fibre Channel clients running a the Snapshot Agent or for clients using multiple protocols. If you do not install the Client software, you must manually add the Client in the Console. 95

104 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual To add the client manually: 1. In the Console, right-click SAN Clients and choose Add. 2. Choose Fibre Channel as the client protocol. 3. Choose your WWPN initiators. See Associating WWPNs with Clients on page Choose Volume Set Addressing. Volume Set Addressing is used primarily for addressing virtual buses, targets, and LUNs. If your storage device uses VSA, you must enable it. 5. Enter a name for the SAN Client, choose the operating system, and indicate whether or not the client machine is part of a cluster. If the client s machine name is not resolvable, enter an IP address and click Find to discover the machine. 6. Indicate if you want to enable persistent reservation. This option enables clustered SAN Clients to take advantage of Persistent Reserve/Release to control disk access between various cluster nodes. 7. Confirm all information and click the Finish button. Associating WWPNs with Clients Similar to an IP address, the World Wide Port Name (WWPN) uniquely identifies a port in a Fibre Channel (FC) environment. Unlike an IP address, the WWPN is assigned by the vendor and hardcoded and embedded. Depending upon whether you are using a switched FC environment, determining the WWPN for each port could be difficult. If you are using a switched FC environment, the VTrak S3000 appliance queries the switch for its Simple Name Server (SNS) database and displays a list of available WWPNs. You must identify which WWPN is associated with each machine. If you are NOT using a switched FC environment, you can manually determine the WWPN for each of your ports. There are different ways to determine it, depending upon the hardware vendor. You might get the WWPN from the BIOS during bootup. Or you can read it from the physical card. Check with your hardware vendor for their preferred method. To simplify this process, when you enabled FC, an Everyone client was created under SAN Clients. See Enabling Fibre Channel Target Mode on page 93 for more information. For security purposes, you may want to assign specific WWPNs to specific clients. For the rest, you can use the Everyone client. To assign specific virtual devices for each client: 1. Highlight the FC client in the Console. 2. Right-click the client and choose Properties. 3. Choose the Initiator WWPNs belonging to your client. Here are some methods to determine the WWPN of your clients: Most Fibre Channel switches allow administration of the switch through an Ethernet port. These administration applications have utilities to reveal or allow you to change the following: Configuration of each port on the switch, zoning 96

105 Chapter 8: Fibre Channel Target Mode configurations, the WWPNs of connected Fibre Channel cards, and the current status of each connection. You can use this utility to view the WWPN of each Client connected to the switch. When starting up your Client, there is usually a point at which you can access the BIOS of your Fibre Channel card. The WWPN can be found there. The first time a new Client connects to the storage server, the following message appears on the server screen: FSQLtgt: New Client WWPN Found: e0 8b If necessary, click Add to add WWPNs for the client. You see the following dialog if there are no WWPNs in the server s list. This could occur because the client machines were not turned on or because all WWPNs were previously associated with clients. Assigning Virtualized Resources to Fibre Channel Clients For security purposes, you can assign specific SAN resources to specific clients. For the rest, you can use the Everyone client. See Enabling Fibre Channel Target Mode on page 93 for more information. To assign resources, right-click a specific client or the Everyone client and choose Assign. If a client has multiple ports and you are using Data Multiple Path software (such as PerfectPath), after you choose the virtual device, you are asked to enter the WWPN mapping. This WWPN mapping is similar to Fibre Channel zoning and enables you to provide multiple paths to the storage server to limit a potential point of network failure. You can choose how the client sees the virtual device: One to One Limits visibility to a single pair of WWPNs. You must choose the client s FC initiator WWPN and the server s FC target WWPN. One to All You must choose the client s FC initiator WWPN. All to One You must choose the server s FC target WWPN. All to All Creates multiple data paths. If ports are ever added to the client or server, they are automatically included in the WWPN mapping. Triggering a Device Rescan In order to see the new devices, after you have finished configuring your Fibre Channel Clients, do one of the following actions, depending upon the requirements of the operating system: Trigger a device rescan. Reboot the client machine. PerfectPath on your Client Machines During failover, the storage server is temporarily unavailable. Since the failover process can take a minute or so, the Clients must keep attempting to connect, so that when the Server becomes available, they can continue normal operations. One way of ensuring that the Clients retry the connection is to use the PerfectPath Agent. PerfectPath is a load balancing and path redundancy application that manages multiple pathways from your client to the switch connected to your storage servers. Should one path fail, PerfectPath taps the other path for I/O operations. If you are not using the PerfectPath Agent, you might be able to configure your HBA driver to perform the retries. Promise recommends that the Clients retry the connection for a minimum of two minutes. If you are using PerfectPath, install it on each Fibre Channel Client in your failover configuration. For more information, see Chapter 20: Multipathing on page

106 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Spoofing an HBA WWPN Your VTrak S3000 software contains a unique feature that can spoof initiator or target port WWPNs. You can use this feature to pre-configure HBAs, making the process of rebuilding a storage server configuration much simpler and less time consuming. This feature is useful when migrating data from an existing system to a new storage server. This feature can also create a potential problem if not used carefully. If the old HBA is somehow connected back to the same FC fabric and you end up with two HBAs with the same WWPN, Fabric outage can occur. Minimizing WWPN conflicts When spoofing WWPNs, take these measures to minimize the chance of a WWPN conflict: 1. Physically destroy the old HBA if it was replaced for defect. 2. Use your HBA vendor's tool to reprogram and swap the WWPN of the two HBAs. 3. Avoid spoofing. This can be done if you allow extra time for the zoning change. Notes Each HBA port must be spoofed to a unique WWPN. Spoofing and un-spoofing are disabled after failover is configured. You must spoof HBAs and enable target mode before setting up Fibre Channel failover. Spoofing must be performed while QLogic HBAs are in initiator mode. After a QLogic HBA has been spoofed, and the HBA driver is restarted, the HBA can then be changed to target mode and have resources assigned through it. Since most switch software applications use an Alias to represent a WWPN, you need to change the WWPN of the Alias and all the zones can be preserved. Configuring HBAs for Spoofing To configure HBAs for spoofing: 1. In the Management Console, right-click the HBA and choose Spoof WWPN. 2. Enter the desired WWPN for the HBA and click OK. Repeat steps 1 and 2 for each HBA to be spoofed. 3. Exit the Console. 4. To restart the VTrak S3000 and HBA driver, type: VTrak restart all 5. Restart the Console and log into your storage server. Notice that the WWPN of the initiator port now has the spoofed WWPN. 6. If desired, switch the spoofed HBA to target mode. Do not use QLogic NPIV mode. Configuring WWNN There may be situations where you need to configure the World Wide Node Name (WWNN) to be the same for all target ports on your storage server, such as if you are using a QLogic MPIO driver on a client machine. By default, each target port has its own unique WWNN. To modify the WWNN: 1. Right-click the server and choose Properties. The Server Properties screen displays. 2. Click the Fibre Channel tab. 98

107 Chapter 8: Fibre Channel Target Mode 3. Click the Modify button. The Select Target WWNN dialog box displays. The WWNNs that appear in the dropdown menu are the default WWNNs of all of the target ports on your storage server. 4. Choose the WWNN from the dropdown menu and click the OK button. Or click the Clear button and type the new WWNN in the Target WWNN field in the Fibre Channel tab. 5. Restart the server when prompted. 99

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109 Chapter 9: SAN Clients This chapter covers the following topics: Adding Clients from the Management Console (page 101) SAN Client Configuration (page 101) Starting and Stopping SAN Client Processes (page 102) Using the Client Program (page 102) Adding, Deleting, and Expanding Virtual Devices (page 103) Linux Device Mapping (page 103) Uninstalling a SAN Client Linux (page 104) Storage Area Network (SAN) Clients are the file and application servers that access SAN Resources. Since SAN Resources appear as locally attached SCSI devices, the applications, such as file services, databases, web servers, and servers, do not require modification to utilize the storage. On the other hand, since the storage is not locally attached, there is some configuration needed to locate and mount the required storage. Adding Clients from the Management Console To add a client from the Management Console: 1. In the console, right-click SAN Clients and choose Add. 2. Enter a name for the SAN Client, choose the operating system, and indicate whether or not the client machine is part of a cluster. If the client s machine name is not resolvable, enter the IP address and then click the Find button to discover the machine. 3. Determine whether you want to limit the amount of space that can be automatically assigned to this client. The quota represents the total allowable space that can be allocated for all of the resources associated with this client. The quota restricts certain types of resources, such as Snapshot Resource and VTrak S3000 Resource, that expand automatically. The client can only expand to the total size of all the resources associated with the client. 4. Indicate if you want to enable Persistent Reservation. This option enables clustered SAN Clients to control disk access between various cluster nodes. 5. Choose the client s protocols. If you choose iscsi, indicate whether this is a mobile client. Choose the initiator this client uses. Add or choose users who can authenticate for this client. If you choose Fibre Channel, choose WWPN initiators, and optionally choose Volume Set Addressing. 6. Confirm all information and click the Finish button. SAN Client Configuration All configuration of the Client is done through the Management Console. Once configured, the SAN Client software connects to the appropriate VTrak appliance and gets its assigned resources. Important After you have installed the Client, to assign more resources from a new appliance, you must first add that appliance to the Client. Then restart the Client for the changes to take effect. 101

110 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Starting and Stopping SAN Client Processes The remainder of this chapter deals exclusively with Linux clients. For information about managing Windows clients, refer to SAN Disk Manager User Manual on the installation DVD in the Documents directory. To start the Client software and access SAN resources: 1. Go to /usr/local/vtrak client/bin. 2. Type the following commands,./vtrak client start Starts the Client../VTrak client stop Stops the Client, detaching all devices in use by the Client../VTrak client restart Stops and starts the Client../VTrak client status Displays the current status of the Client../VTrak client devices Displays a list of VTrak S3000 devices available for use. Important Be sure to use the IP address, not the server name. Before stopping the Client, make sure: All read/write operations are complete None of the storage devices are being used All of the storage devices are unmounted Using the Client Program To use this client program: 1. Type cd /usr/local/vtrak client/bin and press Enter. 2. Execute the following command:./vtrak client monitor 3. Choose the action you want, List VTrak Client Configuration View the client s current configuration. List VTrak Devices View a list of connected devices. If the client connects to multiple appliances, choose one. Add Adds appliances to which this client can connect Delete Removes appliances from this client. Rescan No need to restart the client after adding, deleting, or expanding a virtual device. Enable Protocol Adds a protocol for this client. Disable Protocol Removes a protocol from this client. View Configured Protocol Displays a list of protocols set for this client. 4. If you are adding a appliance, enter the appliance s name, login name (hostname or root user name), and password. 5. If you are deleting a appliance, do these actions in the sequence listed: Back up the /usr/local/vtrak/etc/vtrak clntd.conf file. Enter the appliance name that you want to delete. Restart the client. Perform a rescan of the client. 6. To view the client s configuration, verify that the client has started. Then enter the login ID and password for the client. 102

111 Chapter 9: SAN Clients Figure 1. A sample of information displayed for each appliance the client accesses: Configured storage servers on client localhost: 1) washington Adding, Deleting, and Expanding Virtual Devices For Linux clients, you can add a virtual device to an existing adapter, delete a virtual device, or expand a virtual device without restarting the client. To add, delete, or expand the virtual device: 1. With the Client running, verify that the virtual device to be expanded or deleted is not in use. The disk cannot be mounted, have any files open, and no disk utilities are running. 2. In the console, add, delete, or expand the virtual device. 3. Type CD /usr/local/vtrak client/bin and press Enter. 4. Execute the command./vtrak client monitor. 5. Choose Rescan. 6. As appropriate, follow your operating system s instructions for: Creating a new partition Extending an existing partition Mounting the new disk or partitions Linux Device Mapping Server washington: Adapter (0) SCSI ID 7. Device Name: DIRECT-2 Attach Mode: Exclusive Read Write SCSI ID: 4 Device ID: 2 # Read Commands: 0 # Write Commands: 0 # Misc. Commands: 3 Total Bytes Read: 0 Total Bytes Written: 0 The device file mapping is changed after the VTrak S3000 client has been restarted, using the VTrak client restart command. For example, if the VTrak S3000 client has a total of three virtual devices, two from Server A and one from Server B, the device file displays as follows: /dev/sda vdev2 from Server A /dev/sdb vdev3 from Server A /dev/sdc vdev2 from Server B If a new virtual device is added from Server A to the VTrak S3000 client, the new virtual device displays as /dev/sdd vdev4 after a rescan is performed. However, when the VTrak S3000 client is restarted or the client machine has been rebooted, the device mapping displays as follows: /dev/sda vdev2 from Server A /dev/sdb vdev3 from Server A /dev/sdc vdev4 from Server A /dev/sdd vdev2 from Server B The device mapping displays in this manner because device names on Linux systems are assigned by the Linux kernel on a firstcome-first-serve basis. The newly created device added by the rescan function is assigned to a subsequent name by the Linux kernel. 103

112 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Restarting the VTrak S3000 Client causes the Linux kernel to re-probe all devices presented to the client, adapter by adapter, which can change the order of devices detected by the Linux kernel. Uninstalling a SAN Client Linux To uninstall Linux SAN Client software: 1. Log on to the system as root. 2. Run the following command to remove the client software, rpm -e VTrak client 104

113 Chapter 10: Security This chapter covers the following topics: System Management (page 105) Data Access (page 105) Security Recommendations (page 105) VTrak S3000 utilizes strict authorization policies to ensure proper access to resources on the storage network. Since applications and storage resources are now separated, and it is possible to transmit storage traffic over a non-dedicated network, extra measures have been taken to ensure that data is only accessible to those authorized to use it. To accomplish this, VTrak S3000 safeguards the areas of potential vulnerability: System management Only authorized administrators can modify the configuration of the VTrak S3000 storage system. Data access Authenticate sand authorizes Clients who access the storage resources. System Management VTrak S3000 protects your system by ensuring that only the proper administrators have access to the system s configuration. This means that the administrator s user name and password are always verified against those defined on the VTrak appliance before access to the configuration is granted. While the appliance verifies the administrator s login, only the root user can add or delete VTrak S3000 administrators. The root user can also change other administrator s passwords and has privileges to the operating system. Therefore, the appliance s root user is the key to protecting your appliance and the root user s password should always be closely guarded. Never reveal the root user s password to other administrators. Limit the VTrak S3000 administrator accounts only to those administrators that you trust to modify the appliance s configuration. Keep these administrator accounts secret. Improper modifications of the appliance configuration can result in lost data if SAN Resources are deleted or modified. Data Access Just as VTrak S3000 protects your system configuration by verifying each administrator as they login, VTrak S3000 protects storage resources by ensuring that only the proper computer systems have access to the system s resources. For access by application servers, two things must happen, authentication and authorization. Authentication is the process of establishing the credentials of a Client and creating a trusted relationship, the shared-secret, between the client and server. This prevents other computers from masquerading as the Client and accessing storage that it does not have rights to. Authentication occurs the first time a VTrak appliance is successfully added to a client. Authentication must only be done once per Client-to-Server relationship. Subsequent access to a appliance from a client uses the authenticated shared secret to verify the client. Credentials do not need to be re-established unless the software is re-installed. The authentication process uses the Diffie-Hellman protocol. The password is never transmitted through the network, not even in encrypted form. Therefore the security credentials are not vulnerable to network sniffing, man-in-the-middle, or any other types of known attacks. Authorization is the process of granting storage resources to a Client. This is done through the console by an VTrak S3000 administrator or the appliance s root user. The client can only access those storage resources that have been assigned to it. Security Recommendations In order to maintain a high level of security, a VTrak S3000 installation should be configured and used as described below. Storage Network Topology For performance reasons, VTrak S3000 does not encrypt the actual storage data that is transmitted between the VTrak appliance and clients. Encrypting and decrypting every block of data transferred would incur heavy CPU overhead for both the appliance and clients. Since VTrak S3000 transmits data over potentially shared network channels instead of a computer s local bus, the storage data traffic can be exposed to monitoring by other computers on the same network. For this reason, a totally separate segment should be used for the storage network if a completely secure storage system is required. Only the VTrak S3000 clients and appliances should be on this storage network segment. 105

114 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual If the configuration of your storage network does not maintain a totally separate segment for the storage traffic, it is still possible to maintain some level of security by using encryption or secure file systems on the host computers running the VTrak S3000 Client. In this case, data written to storage devices is encrypted, and cannot be read unless you have the proper decryption tool. The process is entirely transparent to the VTrak S3000 storage system. These tools can only be used at the VTrak S3000 client as the appliance treats the data as block storage data. Physical Security of Machines Due to the nature of computer security in general, if someone has physical access to a server or client, the security of that machine is compromised. By compromised, we mean that a person could copy a password, decipher VTrak S3000 or system credentials, or copy data from that computer. Therefore, we recommend that your servers and clients be maintained in a secure computer room with limited access. Limited access is not necessary for the console, because the console does not leave behind any shared-secrets. Therefore, the console can be run from any machine, but that machine should be a safe non-compromised machine, specifically one that is free from Trojan horse-like programs that monitor and record key strokes. Such a program can collect your password as you type it, thereby compromising your system s security. In addition, be aware that there is no easy way to detect the presence of malicious programs, even by using anti-virus software. Unfortunately, many people with programming knowledge are capable of creating these types of programs, which have no signature that anti-virus software can identify. Therefore, you should never type in your password, or any password, in an environment you cannot trust 100%. Disabling Ports Disable all unnecessary ports. The only ports required by VTrak appliance are shown on the following table: Ports TCP port UDP port TCP/UDP ports TCP/UDP ports TCP port TCP port TCP port TCP port TCP port 20, 21 TCP port 23 TCP port 80 UDP port 161 TCP port 161 UDP port 137 UDP port 138 TCP port 139 TCP port 111 Purposes Used for SAN Client and Management Console to VTrak appliance management communication. Used for SAN Client to VTrak appliance data access communication. Used for VTrak internal use. Used for VTrak internal use. Used for communication between a failover pair. Used on the VTrak appliance for CLI proxy server. Used on the CCM Console for communication with VTrak appliances. Used for Promise Management Console and VTrak appliance to SAN Client management communication. Used on the VTrak appliance for FTP. Used on the VTrak appliance for Telnet. Used on Server or Client for online registration of license keycodes (Web). The port 80 is used to connect to the web license server for online activation. The answer is sent back using HTTP protocol where a local random port number is used. The port is not hard-coded, It acts like web-based pages you receive on your machine. Firewall does not block pages if the established bit is set to let established traffic in. Used for SNMP traps. Used for SNMP traps. Used for Samba NetBios Name Service. Used for Samba NetBios datagrams. Used for Samba NetBios sessions. Used for NFS. 106

115 Chapter 10: Security UDP port 111 TCP port 3260 Ports Used for NFS. NFS port usage is assigned through the SUNRPC protocol. The ports vary, so it is not possible or convenient to keep checking them and reprogramming a firewall. Most firewalls have an Enable NFS setting which changed the port settings if the ports themselves change. Used for iscsi. Purposes Although you might temporarily open some ports during initial setup of the VTrak S3000 appliance, such as the telnet port (23) and FTP ports (20 and 21), shut them down after you have done using them. 107

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117 Chapter 11: Failover This chapter covers the following topics: Overview (page 109) Connectivity Failure (page 110) Storage Device Path Failure (page 111) Storage Device Failure (page 111) Failover Overview (page 112) Failover Requirements (page 113) Failover Restrictions (page 115) Failover Setup (page 115) Power Control Option (page 123) Checking Failover Status (page 124) After Failover (page 125) Modifying Failover Configuration (page 126) Starting and Stopping Failover or Recovery (page 128) Remove a Failover Configuration (page 128) Mirroring and Failover (page 129) Snapshot and Failover (page 129) Overview To support mission-critical computing, VTrak S3000-enabled technology provides high availability for the entire storage network, protecting you from a wide variety of problems, including: Connectivity Failure Storage Device Path Failure Storage Device Failure Storage Server and Storage Device Failure The following illustrates a basic VTrak S3000 configuration with potential points of failure and a high availability configuration, where VTrak S3000 s high availability options work with redundant hardware to eliminate the points of failure. 109

118 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Figure 1. High Availability options Connectivity Failure A connectivity failure can occur due to a Network Interface Card (NIC), Fibre Channel HBA, cable, switch, or router failure. You can eliminate this potential point of failure by providing multiple paths to the VTrak appliance with multiple NICs, HBAs, cables, switches, and routers. The client always tries to connect to the server with its original IP address. That is the address originally set in the client when the server was added. You can re-direct traffic to an alternate adapter by permitting you to specify the alternate IP addresses for the VTrak appliance. From the console, right-click the server (VTrak appliance) and choose Properties > Server IP Addresses. When you set this up, the clients attempt to communicate with the server using an alternate IP address if the original IP address stops responding. 110

119 Chapter 11: Failover Storage Device Path Failure Important For failover to occur when there is a failure, the device driver must promptly report the failure. Make sure you have the latest driver available from the manufacturer. For the clients to successfully use an alternate IP address, your subnet must be set properly so that the subnet itself can redirect traffic to the proper alternate adapter. The client becomes aware of the multiple IP addresses when it initially connects to the server. If you add more IP addresses in the console while the client is running, Windows clients must rescan devices and Linux clients must restart the client, to make the client aware of these IP addresses. When you recover from a network path failure, you must restart the client so it can use the original IP address. A storage device path failure can occur due to a cable, switch or router failure. You can eliminate this potential point of failure by providing a multiple path configuration, using multiple Fibre Channel switches, multiple adapters, or storage devices with multiple controllers. In a multiple path configuration, all paths to the storage devices are automatically detected. If one path fails, there is an automatic switch to another path. Important Fibre Channel switches can demonstrate different behavior in a multiple path configuration. Before using a multiple path configuration with VTrak S3000, verify that the configuration can work on your server without the VTrak S3000 software. To verify: 1. Use the hardware vendor s utility or Linux s cat /proc/scsi/scsi command to see the devices after the driver is loaded. 2. Use the hardware vendor s utility or Linux s hdparm command to access the devices. 3. Unplug a cable from one device and run the utilities listed above to verify that everything is working. 4. Repeat the test by reversing which device is unplugged and verify that everything still works. Storage Device Failure VTrak S3000 s Mirroring options provides high availability by minimizing the down time that can occur if a physical disk fails. With mirroring, each time data is written to a designated disk, the same data is also written to another disk. This disk maintains an exact copy of the primary disk. In the event that the primary disk is unable to read or write data when requested by a SAN Client, the data functions are swapped to the mirrored copy disk. Storage Server and Storage Device Failure The Failover Option provides high availability by eliminating the down time that can occur should the software or hardware components of a VTrak S3000 appliance fail. In the failover design, a VTrak appliance is configured to monitor another VTrak appliance. In the event that the server being monitored fails to fulfill its responsibilities to the clients it is serving, the monitoring server takes over its identity so the clients transparently fails over to the monitoring server. A unique monitoring system is used to ensure the health of the VTrak appliances. This system includes a self-monitor and an intelligent heartbeat monitor. The self-monitor is part of all VTrak appliances, not just those configured for failover and provides continuous health status of the server. It is part of the process that provides operational status to any interested and authorized parties, including the console and supported network management applications through SNMP. The self-monitor checks all VTrak appliance processes and connectivity to the appliance s storage devices. In a failover configuration, the intelligent heartbeat monitor continuously monitors the primary server through the same network path that the server uses to serve its clients. When the heartbeat is retrieved, the results are evaluated. There are several possibilities: All is well and no failover is necessary. 111

120 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual The self-monitor detects a critical error in the VTrak server processes that is determined to be fatal, yet the error did not affect the network interface. In this case, the secondary informs the primary to release its VTrak identity and take over serving the failed server s clients. The self-monitor detects a storage device connectivity failure but cannot determine whether the failure is local or applies to the secondary server also. In that case the device error condition is reported through the heartbeat. The secondary server attempts to access the storage. If it succeeds, it attempts to access all devices. If it can successfully access all devices, the secondary initiates a failover. If the secondary server cannot access all devices, no failover occurs. Because the heartbeat uses the same network path that the server uses to serve its clients, if the heartbeat cannot be retrieved, the secondary server knows that the clients cannot access the server. This is considered a Catastrophic failure because the server or the network connectivity is incapacitated. In this case the secondary server immediately initiates a failover. Failover Overview VTrak S3000 s failover option provides high availability for VTrak S3000 operations by eliminating the down time that can occur should a VTrak appliance, software or hardware, or a storage device fail. There are two modes of failover: Shared storage failover Uses a two-node failover pair to provide node level redundancy. This model requires a shared storage infrastructure and is typically Fibre Channel based. Non-shared storage failover Provides high availability without the need for shared storage. Used with appliances containing internal storage. Mirroring is facilitated over a dedicated, direct IP connection. Primary and Secondary Storage Servers The primary and secondary servers are separate, independent VTrak appliances that each have their own assigned clients. The primary storage server is the appliance that is being monitored by the secondary storage server. In the event the primary fails, the secondary takes over. This is referred to as Active-Passive Failover. The terms Primary and Secondary are purely from the client s perspective since these servers may be configured to monitor each other. This is referred to as Mutual Failover or Active-Active Failover. In that case, each server is primary to its own clients and secondary to the other s clients. Each server normally services its own clients. In the event one server fails, the other takes over and serve the failed server s clients. Failover and Takeover Failover and takeover is the process that occurs when the secondary server takes over the identity of the primary. In the case of cross-mirroring on a virtual appliance, failover occurs when all disks are swapped to the secondary server. Failover occurs under the following conditions: One or more of the VTrak appliance processes goes down. There is a network connectivity problem, such as a defective NIC or a loose network cable with which this NIC client is associated. Shared storage failover caused by a storage path failure. The heartbeat cannot be retrieved. There is a power failure. One or more Fibre Channel targets is down. Swap For virtual appliances: Swap is the process that occurs with cross-mirroring when data functions are moved from a failed virtual disk on the primary server to the mirrored virtual disk on the secondary server. The disks are swapped back once the problem is resolved. There is a connectivity problem between a SCSI or Fibre Channel card and a storage device, such as a loose or broken cable. Recovery and Failback Recovery and Failback is the process that occurs when the secondary server releases the identity of the primary to allow the primary to restore its operation. Once control has returned to the primary server, the secondary server returns to its normal monitoring mode. After recovering from a virtual appliance cross-mirror failure, the secondary server swaps disks back to the primary server after the disks are re-synchronized. 112

121 Chapter 11: Failover Asymmetric mode Fibre Channel only. Asymmetric failover requires standby ports on the secondary server in case a target port on your primary server (VTrak appliance) fails. Figure 2. Shared storage failover sample configuration This diagram illustrates a shared storage failover configuration. In this example, both servers (VTrak appliances) are monitoring each other. Because both servers are actively serving their own clients, this configuration is referred to as an active-active or mutual failover configuration. When server A fails, server B takes over and serves the clients of server A in addition to its own clients. Failover Requirements The following are the requirements for setting up a failover configuration. General Failover Requirements You must have two VTrak appliances. Both servers must reside on the same network segment, because in the event of a failover, the secondary server must be accessible by the clients of the primary server. This network segment must have at least one other device that generates a network ping, such as a router, switch, or server. This arrangement enables the secondary server to detect the network in the event of a failure. Each NIC in the primary server must be on its own subnet. If multiple Network Interface Cards (NICs) are in the same subnet, only the first IP address is used for failover. All other IP addresses in the same subnet are ignored. You need to reserve an IP address for each network adapter in your primary failover server. The IP address must be on the same subnet as the secondary server and is used by the secondary server to monitor the primary server's health. In a mutual failover configuration, these IP addresses are used by the servers to monitor each other s health. The health monitoring IP address remains with the server in the event of failure so that the server s health can be continually monitored. Note that the VTrak appliance clients and the console cannot use the health monitoring IP address to connect to the appliance. You must use static IP addresses for your failover configuration. We also recommend that the IP addresses of your appliances be defined in a DNS server so they can be resolved. If you plan to use Fibre Channel target mode or iscsi target mode, you must enable it on both the primary and secondary servers before creating your failover configuration. The first time you set up a failover configuration, the secondary server must not have any Replica resources. 113

122 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual You must have at least one device reserved for a virtual device on each primary server with enough space to hold the configuration repository that is created. The main repository should be established on a RAID 5 or RAID 1 file system for ultimate reliability. Promise strongly recommends that you use some type of power control option for failover servers. If you are using an external hardware power controller for your failover pair, you should set it up before creating your failover configuration. For more information see Power Control Option on page 123. General Failover Requirements for iscsi Clients For Window iscsi clients, the Microsoft iscsi initiator has a default retry period of 60 seconds. You must change it to 300 seconds in order to sustain the disk for five minutes during failover so that applications are not disrupted by temporary network problems. This setting is changed through the registry. To change the retry period: 1. Go to Start > Run and type regedit. 2. Find the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > system > CurrentControlSet > control > class > 4D6E97B-xxxxxxxxx\<iscsi adapter interface>\parameters\ Where iscsi adapter interface corresponds to the adapter instance, such as 0000, 0001,and so on. 3. To create a backup of the parameter values, right-click Parameters and choose Export. 4. Double-click MaxRequestHoldTime. 5. Choose Decimal and change the Value to Click the OK button. 7. Reboot Windows for the change to take effect. Shared Storage Failover Requirements Both servers (VTrak appliances) must have at least one NIC on the same subnet. Unlike other clustering software, the heartbeat co-exists on the same NIC as the storage network. The heartbeat does not require and should NOT be on a dedicated heartbeat interface and subnet. The failover pair must have connections to the same common storage. If the storage cannot be seen by both servers, it cannot be accessed from both servers. However, the storage does not have to be represented the same way to both servers. Each server needs at least one path to each commonly-shared physical storage device. But there is no maximum number of paths and the number of paths need be equal. For example, server A might have two paths while server B has four. Make sure to properly configure LUN masking on storage arrays so both VTrak appliance nodes can access the same LUNs. Storage devices must be attached in a multi-host SCSI configuration or attached on a Fibre loop or switched fabric. In this configuration, both servers can access the same devices at the same time, both reading and writing. If you plan to use the IP Bonding option, set it up before creating a failover configuration. You cannot change or remove IP Bonding once failover is set up. If you need to change IP Bonding, you must remove failover first. FC-based Asymmetric Failover Requirements During failover, the server (VTrak appliance) is temporarily unavailable. Since the failover process can take a minute or so, the clients must keep attempting to connect so that when the server becomes available, they can continue normal operations. One way of ensuring that clients retry the connection is to use the multi-pathing agent, PerfectPath. If you are not using PerfectPath, you might be able to use other third-party multi-pathing software. Or you might be able to configure your HBA driver to perform the retries. Promise recommends that clients retry the connection for a minimum of two minutes. Fibre Channel target ports are not required on either server for Asymmetric mode. However, if Fibre Channel is enabled on both servers, the primary server MUST have at least one target port and the secondary server MUST have a standby port. If Fibre Channel is disabled on both servers, neither server needs target or standby ports. If target ports are configured on a server, you must have at least the same number of initiators, or aliases depending on the adapter, on the other server. Asymmetric failover supports the use of QLogic HBAs. 114

123 Chapter 11: Failover Failover Restrictions The following information is important to be aware of when configuring failover: There is no failover of direct devices. If a client is accessing a direct device when a failover occurs, the client loses its connection to the device. After recovery, once the client is restarted, it is reconnected to the direct device. In addition, if you create a direct device and assign it to a client while in a failover state, after recovery, the same problem occurs. JBOD subsystems are not recommended for failover. If you use a JBOD as the storage device for a VTrak appliance, configured in Fabric Loop, certain downstream failover scenarios, such as SCSI Aliasing, might not function properly. If a Fibre connection on the VTrak appliance is broken, the JBOD subsystem might hang and not respond to SCSI commands. SCSI Aliasing attempts to connect using the other Fibre connection. However, since the JBOD is in an unknown state, the VTrak appliance cannot reconnect to the JBOD, causing VTrak S3000 clients to disconnect from their resources. In a pure Fibre Channel environment, Network failure does not trigger failover. Failover Setup You need to know the IP addresses of the primary server and the secondary server to configure a mutual failover scheme. You also need to know the health monitoring IP addresses. It is a good idea to gather this information and find available IP addresses before you begin the setup. To set-up a failover: 1. In the console, right-click an expanded server (VTrak appliance) and choose Failover > Failover Setup Wizard. You see a screen similar to the following that shows you a status of options on your server. Any options installed or enabled on the primary storage server must also be installed or enabled on the secondary storage server. 2. If you have recently made device changes, rescan the server s physical adapters. Before a failover configuration can be created, the storage system must know the ownership of each physical device for the chosen server. Therefore, it is recommended that you allow the wizard to rescan the server s devices. If you have recently used the Rescan option to rescan the chosen server's physical adapters, you can skip the server scanning process. 115

124 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 3. Choose whether you want to use the Cross-mirror feature, available only for virtual appliances. 4. Choose the secondary server and determine if the servers can monitor each other. Non-shared storage, check the Mutual Failover box. Figure 3. Shared storage failover For non-shared storage, click the Find button or manually enter IP address for the secondary server. Both IP addresses must start with

125 Chapter 11: Failover Figure 4. Non-shared storage 5. Cross-mirror only. Choose the disks to be used for the primary server. System disks are not listed. The disks you choose are used as storage by the primary server. The disks you do not choose are used as storage by the secondary server. 117

126 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 6. Cross-mirror on virtual appliance only. Confirm the disks to be used for the secondary server. 7. Cross-mirror on virtual appliance only. Confirm the physical device allocation. 8. Follow the wizard to create a configuration repository on this server. The configuration repository maintains a continuously updated version of your storage system configuration. For additional security, after your failover configuration is complete, you can enable mirroring on the configuration repository. Promise also recommends that you create a configuration repository, even if you have a standalone server. Be sure to use a different physical drive for the mirror. 9. Determine if there are any conflicts with the server you have chosen. The system alerts you if any physical disks, pre-existing virtual disks, or service-enabled disks cannot be seen by both primary and secondary storage servers. 118

127 Chapter 11: Failover If there are conflicts, a dialog box similar to the following displays: Mismatched devices are listed here. For example, if you have a RAID array and one server sees all eight devices and the other server sees only four devices, you see the devices listed here as mismatched. You must resolve the mismatch before continuing. For example, if the QLogic driver did not load on one server, you have to load it before continuing. Note that you can exclude physical devices from failover consideration, if desired. 10. Determine if you need to rescan this server s physical adapters. If you fixed any mismatched devices in the last step, you must rescan before the wizard can continue. If you are re-running the Failover wizard because you made a change to a physical device on one of the servers, rescanning is recommended before continuing. If you had no conflicts and you recently used the Rescan option to rescan the chosen server s physical adapters, you can skip the scanning process. 11. If this is a mutual failover configuration, follow the wizard to create a configuration repository on the secondary server. 12. Choose the subnet to use for the heartbeat. Note If this is the first time you are setting up a failover configuration, you see a warning message if there are any Replica resources on the secondary server. You must remove the Replica resources and then restart the failover wizard. 119

128 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual If there are multiple subnets, set the order for which the heartbeat is checked. By re-ordering the subnet list, failover can be avoided due to a failure on eth0. If you are using the Cross-mirror feature, you cannot see the cross-mirror link listed here. 13. Indicate whether you want to use this network adapter. For a non-mutual failover, you see this dialog box. For a mutual failover, you see this dialog box. Choose the IP addresses that clients use to access the VTrak appliances when using iscsi, replication, and for console communication. 120

129 Chapter 11: Failover Important If you change the Server IP addresses while the console is connected using those IP addresses, the Failover wizard cannot create the configuration. If you uncheck the Include this Network Adapter for failover box, the wizard displays the next card it finds. You must choose at least one. For SAN Resources, because failover can occur at any time, use only those IP addresses that are configured as part of the failover configuration to connect to the server. 14. Enter the health monitoring IP address you reserved for the chosen network adapter. For a non-mutual failover, you see this dialog box. For a mutual failover, you see this dialog box. The health monitoring IP address remains with the server in the event of failure so that the server s health can be continually monitored. Static IP addresses are recommended. Choose health monitoring heartbeat addresses to be used exclusively by the VTrak appliances to monitor each other s health. Do not use these addresses for any other purpose. 15. If you want to use more network adapter cards, repeat the steps above. 121

130 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 16. Asymmetric mode only. For Fibre Channel failover, choose the initiator on the secondary server that functions as a standby in case the target port on your primary server fails. You must choose a dedicated standby port for each target port used by clients. Confirm that the adapter shown is not the initiator on your secondary server that is connected to the storage array. Also confirm that it is not the target adapter on your secondary server. You can only pick a standby port once. If you are configuring a mutual failover, you must set up the standby adapter for the secondary server as well. Note that a pop-up window appears as a reminder if you used hard zoning. Verify that standby ports are also zoned with client initiators the same as the target ports. 17. Choose IPMI as the Power Control Optiom for the primary server. See Power Control Option on page Choose IPMI as the Power Control Option for the secondary server. 122

131 Chapter 11: Failover 19. Confirm all of the information and then click Finish to create the failover configuration. Once your configuration is complete, each time you connect to either server in the console, you are automatically connected to the other as well. After configuring, you see all of the virtual machine disks listed in the Tree, as in this example: These are local physical disks for this server (VTrak appliance). V indicates the disk is virtualized for this server and an F indicates a foreign disk. Q indicates a quorum disk containing the configuration repository. These are remote physical disks for this server. Important If the setup fails during the configuration stage, use the Remove Failover Configuration option to delete the partially saved configuration. Then create a new failover configuration. A failure during the configuration stage could be the result of the second server accidently being unplugged while the configuration is being written to it. After a failover occurs, if a client machine is rebooted while either of the failover servers (VTrak appliances) is powered off, the client must rescan devices once the failover server is powered back on, but before recovery occurs. If this is not done, the client machine must reboot in order to discover the newly restored paths. Power Control Option At times, a server (VTrak appliance) may become unresponsive, but, because of network or internal reasons, it may not release its resources or its IP address, thereby preventing failover from occurring. To allow for graceful failover, you can use the Power Control to force the primary server to release its resources after a failure. 123

132 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Power Control is used to prevent clusters from competing for access to the same storage. They are triggered when a secondary server fails to communicate with the primary server over both the network and the quorum drive. When this occurs, the secondary server triggers a forceful take over of the primary server and triggers Power Control. Power Control is set during failover configuration. To change options, right-click either failover server (VTrak appliance) and choose Failover > Power Control. Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) is a hardware level interface that monitors various hardware functions on a server. IPMI resets the power of the primary server, forcing the release of the server s resources and IP address. If IPMI is provided by your hardware vendor, you must follow the vendor s instructions to configure it and you must create an administrative user via your IPMI configuration tool. The IP address cannot be the virtual IP address that was set for failover. If you are using IPMI, you see several IPMI options on the server s System Maintenance menu, Monitor, and Filter. Check the Promise certification matrix for a current list of VTrak S3000 appliances and server hardware that has been certified for use with IPMI. Checking Failover Status You can see the current status of your failover configuration, including all settings, by checking the Failover Information tab for the server (VTrak appliance). Failover settings, including the IP addresses monitored for failover. Status of failover configuration. In addition, you see a colored dot next to a server (VTrak appliance) to indicate the following conditions: Red dot Server is currently in failover mode and has been taken over by the secondary server. Green dot Server has taken over the primary server's resources. Yellow dot User has suspended failover on this server. The current server does NOT take over the primary server s resources even it detects abnormal condition from the primary server. Failover events are also written to the primary server's Event Log, so you can check there for status and operational information, as well as any errors. You should be aware that when a failover occurs, the console shows the failover partner s Event Log for the server that failed. Failover Information Report The Failover Information Report can be viewed by double clicking the server status of the failed server (VTrak appliance) from the console in the General tab. Failover Network Failure Status Report The Network failure status report can be viewed using the sms command on the failed server (VTrak appliance) when failover has been triggered due to a client associated NIC link being down. 124

133 Chapter 11: Failover After Failover When a failed server (VTrak appliance) is restarted, it communicates with the acting primary server and must receive the okay from the acting primary server in order to recover its role as the primary server. If there is a communication problem, such as a network error, and no notification is received, the failed server remains in a ready state but does not recover its role as the primary server. After the communication problem has been resolved, the VTrak appliance is then able to recover normally. Manual recovery Manual recovery is the process when the secondary server releases the identity of the primary. That allows the primary server to restore its operation. To trigger manual recovery choose the Stop Takeover option from the Management Console. If the primary server (VTrak appliance) is not ready to recover, but you can still communicate with it, a detailed failover screen displays. If the primary server (VTrak appliance) is not ready to recover, and you cannot communicate with it, a warning message displays. 125

134 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Fixing a Failed Server If the primary server fails over to the secondary and hardware changes are made to the failed server, the secondary server is not aware of these changes. When failback occurs, the original configuration parameters are returned to the primary server. To ensure that both servers become synchronized with the new hardware information, you must issue a physical device rescan for the machine whose hardware has changed as soon as the failback occurs. Replacing a Failed Server When a VTrak S3000 appliance ceases to operate due to a failed motherboard, processor, or other unrecoverable hardware error, it may be necessary to replace the entire machine. This section details how to replace the failed server while its partner handles all of the failed server's responsibilities. To building a replacement server (VTrak appliance): 1. Remove the Fibre Channel host bus adapters from the failed server. Make a note of what the serial number was of each port and which PCI slot the HBA port was in. Note that dual port cards have two serial numbers per card. On the new replacement server, open the case and inspect the new Fibre Channel HBAs. Note the serial number of each of these cards and their ports. You may have to remove each card to get these numbers. Each port has its own serial number as well as the World Wide Port Name (WWPN). 2. Configure your new hardware. You may want to reuse the Fibre Channel HBAs from the failed server or install new ones into the new server. Either way, the HBAs are spoofed to use their original WWPNs as they were in the failed server. Make sure to use the same number of HBAs, Fibre Channel and SCSI, and the same number of physical devices in the replacement server as was in the failed server. If the server fails, contact Promise techincal support for assistance. See Contacting Technical Support on page 251. Modifying Failover Configuration Making Changes to the Servers in your Failover Configuration The first time you set up your failover configuration, the secondary server (VTrak appliance) cannot have any Replica resources. In order to make any changes to a mutual failover configuration, you must be running the console with write access to both servers (VTrak appliances). VTrak S3000 automatically logs on to the failover pair when you attempt any configuration on the failover set. While it is not required that both servers have the same user name and password, the system tries to connect to both servers using the same user name and password. If the servers have different user names and passwords, it prompts you to enter them before you can continue. Changing the Physical Device If you make a change to a physical device, such as if you add a network card that is used for failover, you must re-run the Failover wizard. Be sure to scan both servers during the wizard. At that point, the secondary server is permitted to have Replica resources. This makes it easy for you to upgrade your failover configuration. Changing the Subnet If you switch IP segments for an existing failover configuration, do the following actions: 1. Remove failover from both VTrak appliances. 2. Delete the current failover servers from the Management Console. 3. Make network modifications to the VTrak appliances, that is change the IP segments. 4. Add the VTrak appliances back to the Management Console. 5. Configure failover using the new IP segment. Converting a Failover Configuration to a Mutual Failover Configuration Right-click the server (VTrak appliance) and choose Failover > Setup Mutual Failover to convert your failover configuration into a mutual failover configuration where both servers monitor each other. A configuration repository should be created even if you 126

135 Chapter 11: Failover have on standalone server. The status of the configuration repository is always displayed on the console under the General tab. In the case of a configuration repository failure, the console displays the time of failure along with the last successful update. Important If no configuration repository is found on the secondary server, use the failover wizard to create a configuration repository on the secondary server. Exclude Physical Devices from Health Checking You can create a storage exception list that excludes one or more specific physical devices from being monitored. Devices on this list so not prompt the system to fail over, even if the device stops functioning. This is useful when using less reliable storage, for asynchronous mirroring or local replication, whose temporary loss is not critical. When removing failover, this list is reset and cleaned up. To exclude devices, right-click the server (VTrak appliance) and choose Failover > Storage Exception List. Changing your Failover Intervals Right-click the server (VTrak appliance) and choose Failover > View/Update Failover Options to change the intervals, including heartbeat, self-checking, and auto recovery for this configuration. The Self-checking Interval determines how often the primary server checks itself. The Heartbeat Interval determines how often the secondary server checks the heartbeat of the primary server. If enabled, Auto Recovery determines how long to wait before returning control to the primary server once the primary server has recovered. Verifying that Physical Devices Match The Check Consistency tool verifies that both nodes can see the same LUNs or the same number of LUNs. This is useful when physical storage devices are added or removed. After suspending failover and adding or removing storage to both nodes, you would first perform a rescan of the resources on both sides to pick up the changes in configuration. After verifying storage consistency between the two nodes, failover can be resumed without risking a failover trigger. To use the Check Consistency tool, right-click the server (VTrak appliance) and choose Failover > Check Consistency. Note Promise recommends keeping the Self-checking Interval and Heartbeat Interval set to the default values. Changing the values can result in a significantly longer failover and recovery process. 127

136 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Starting and Stopping Failover or Recovery Forcing a Takeover by a Secondary Server On the secondary server (VTrak appliance), choose Failover > Start Takeover <servername> to initiate a failover to the secondary server. You may want to do this if you are taking your primary server offline, such as when you are performing maintenance on it. Once failover is complete, a failover message blinks in red at the bottom of the console and you are disconnected from the primary server. Manually Initiate a Recovery to your Primary Server Choose Failover > Stop Takeover if your failover configuration was not set up to use the Auto Recovery feature and you want to: Force control to return to your primary server. Manually forced a takeover and now want to recover to your primary server. Once failback is complete, you are logged off from the virtual primary server. Suspending and Resuming Failover Choose Failover > Suspend Failover to stop monitoring its partner server (VTrak appliance). In the case of Active-Active failover, you can suspend from either server (appliance). However, the server that you suspend from stops monitoring its partner and does not take over for that partner server in the event of failure. It can still fail over itself. For example, server A and server B are configured for Active-Active failover. If you go to server B and suspend failover, server A no longer fails over to server B. However, server B can still fail over to server A. Choose Failover > Resume Failover to restart the monitoring. Important If the cross-mirror link goes down, failover is suspended. Use the Resume Failover option when the cross-mirror link comes back up. The disks are automatically re-synced at the scheduled interval. Or you can manually synchronize using the cross-mirror synchronize option. If you stop the processes on the primary server (VTrak appliance) after suspending failover, you must do the following once you restart your appliance: 1. At a Linux command prompt, type sms to see the failover status. 2. When the system is in a ready state, type the following command: vlfexm.sh recovery. Once the connection is repaired, the failover status does not clear until failover is resumed on both servers. Remove a Failover Configuration Right-click one of your failover servers (VTrak appliances) and choose Failover > Remove Failover Server to remove the chosen appliance from the failover configuration. In a one-way failover configuration, this action eliminates the configuration and returns the VTrak appliances to independent storage servers. If this is a mutual-failover configuration and you want to eliminate the failover relationship from both sides, choose the Remove Mutual Failover option. If this is a mutual failover configuration, and you do not choose the Remove Mutual Failover option, the server (VTrak appliance) you right-clicked becomes the secondary server in a non-mutual configuration. 128

137 Chapter 11: Failover if you want to eliminate the failover relationship from both sides, check the Remove the Heartbeat IP addresses from the server box. If everything all boxes are checked, it eliminates the failover relationship and removes the health monitoring IP addresses from the servers (VTrak appliances) and restores the Server IP addresses. If you uncheck the IP addresses for a server, the health monitoring address becomes the Server IP address. Mirroring and Failover For shared storage failovers: If a physical drive contains only a mirrored resource and the physical drive fails, the server (VTrak appliance) does not fail over. If the physical drive contained a primary mirrored resource, the mirror swaps roles and the mirrored copy becomes the primary disk. If the physical drive contained a mirrored copy, nothing happens to the mirror because there is no need for the mirror to swap. If there are other virtual devices on the same physical drive and the other virtual devices are not mirrored resources, the server (VTrak appliance) does fail over. Swapping only occurs if all of the virtual devices on the physical drive contain mirrored resources. Snapshot and Failover Clients might be unable to access SnapshotViews during failover. 129

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139 Chapter 12: Performance This chapter covers the following topics: Using HyperCache-W (page 131) Configuring HyperCache-W (page 132) Using HyperCache-R (page 136) Configuring a HyperCache-R (page 137) VTrak S3000 offers several options that can dramatically increase the performance of your SAN: HyperCache-W enables the VTrak appliance to make use of high-speed storage devices as a read/write staging area, thereby improving the overall performance. HyperCache-R Offers two methods to improve performance, Read Cache and Prefetch. Disk Striping Provides software RAID 0 for improved performance using standard disk drives. Using HyperCache-W The HyperCache-W option improves the overall performance of VTrak S3000-managed disks, virtual or service-enabled, by making use of high-speed storage devices, such as RAM disk, NVRAM, or solid-state disk (SSD), as a persistent, meaning non-volatile read/write cache. In a centralized storage environment where a large set of database servers share a smaller set of storage devices, data tends to be randomly accessed. Even with a RAID controller that uses cache memory to increase performance and availability, hard disk storage often cannot keep up with application I/O requests from the server. HyperCache-W, working in conjunction with high-speed devices such as RAM disk, NVRAM or SSDs, to front slower real disks, can significantly improve performance. Since these high-speed devices are 100% immune to random access, HyperCache-W can write data blocks sequentially to the cache and then move or flush them to the data disk as a separate random write process after other writes have been acknowledged, effectively accelerating the performance of the slower disks. Regardless of the type of high-speed storage device being used as persistent cache whether RAM disk, NVRAM, or SSD, the persistent cache can be mirrored for added protection using the Mirroring option. In addition, SSDs and NVRAM have a built-in power supply to minimize potential downtime. HyperCache-W is fully compatible with the VTrak S3000 failover option, which enables one server (VTrak appliance) to automatically fail over to another without any data loss and without any cache write coherency problems. It is highly recommended that you use a solid state disk as your HyperCache-W. 131

140 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Configuring HyperCache-W To set up HyperCache-W for a SAN Resource you must create a cache resource. You can create a cache resource for a single SAN Resource or you can use the batch feature to create cache resources for multiple SAN Resources. To enable HyperCache-W: 1. Navigate to Logical Resources > SAN Resources. 2. Right-click a SAN Resource and choose HyperCache-W > Enable. The Create Cache Resource Wizard displays to guide you through creating the cache resource and allocating space for the storage. Global Cache You can choose to create a global or private cache resource. A global cache enables you to share the cache with up to 128 resources. To create a global cache, open the Create Cache Resource Wizard and choose Use Global Cache Resource. Important notes about Global Cache: Global Cache cannot be enabled in batch mode. Global Cache must be enabled for each device one at a time. Each server can only have one Global Cache. If the Global Cache is suspended, resumed, or its properties is changed on a virtual device, that action also affects on the rest of the members. Disabling the Global Cache only removes the Global Cache on that specific device. Importing the Global Cache from one server to another server is not supported. HyperCache-W for Groups If you want to preserve the write order across SAN Resources, you should create a group and enable HyperCache-W for the group. This is useful for large databases that span over multiple devices. In such situations, the entire group of devices is acting as one huge device that contains the database. Changes are made to the database might involve different places on different devices. To preserve database integrity, the write order must be preserved over the group of devices. Creating a Cache Resource 1. For a single SAN resource, right-click a SAN resource and choose HyperCache-W > Enable. For multiple SAN resources, right-click the SAN resources object and choose HyperCache-W > Enable. 2. Choose how you want to create the cache resource: Note that the cache resource cannot be expanded. Therefore, you should allocate enough space for your cache resource, taking into account future growth. If you outgrow your cache resource, you must disable it and then recreate it. Custom You choose which physical devices to use and lets you designate how much space to allocate from each. 132

141 Chapter 12: Performance Express Automatically creates the cache resource using the criteria you chose: Select different drive VTrak S3000 looks for space on another hard disk. Select drives from different adapter/channel VTrak S3000 looks for space on another hard disk only if it is on a separate adapter/channel. Select any available drive VTrak S3000 looks for space on any disk, including the original. This option is useful if you have mapped a device, such as a RAID device, that appears as a single physical device. If you choose Custom, you see the following series of windows. 133

142 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Choose either an entirely unallocated disk or partially unallocated disk. You can only choose one disk at a time from this dialog box. After choosing the parameters for the first disk, you can add more disks. Indicates how much space to allocate from this disk. If you need to add more space to this cache resource, click the Add More button. If you add more disks, you return to the physical device selection screen where you can choose another disk. In the first window, choose either an entirely unallocated or partially unallocated disk. You can choose only one disk at a time from this dialog box. To create a cache resource from multiple physical disks, you must add the disks one at a time. After choosing the parameters for the first disk, you can add more disks. In the next window, indicate how much space to allocate from this disk. In the next window, click the Add More button if you need to add more space to this cache resource. If you add more disks, you return to the physical device selection screen where you can choose another disk. 3. Configure when and how the cache should be flushed. 134

143 Chapter 12: Performance These parameters can be used to further enhance performance. Flush cache when data reaches n% of threshold Specify what percentage of the cache resource can be used before the cache is flushed. The default value is 50%. Flush cache after n milliseconds of inactivity Specify how many milliseconds of inactivity should pass before the cache is flushed even if the threshold from the above is not met. The default value is 3000 milliseconds. Flush cache n outstanding commands at a time Specify the number of outstanding commands to flush at a time. The default value is 6. Skip Duplicate Write Commands This option prevents the system from writing more than once to the same block during the cache flush. Therefore, when the cache flushes data to the underlying virtual device, if there is more than one write to the same block, it skips all except the most recent write. Leave this option unchecked if you are using asynchronous mirroring through a WAN or an unreliable network. 4. Confirm that all information is correct and click the Finish button. To mirror your cache resource, right-click the SAN Resource and choose HyperCache-W > Mirror > Add. Important If you take a snapshot manually, via the Console or command line, of a HyperCache-W-enabled resource, the snapshot is not created until the cache has been flushed. If failover occurs before the cache is empty, the snapshot is not created. You must re-take the snapshot after the server has failed over. Checking the Status of your HyperCache-W Resource You can see the current status of your cache resource by checking the HyperCache-W tab for a cached resource. Unlike a snapshot resource that continues to grow, the cache resource is cleared after data blocks have moved to the data disk. Therefore, you can see the Usage Percentage decrease, even return to 0% if there is no write activity. HyperCache-W Properties You can update the parameters that control how and when data is flushed from the cache resource to the VTrak S3000-managed disk. To update these parameters: 1. Right-click a SAN Resource that has HyperCache-W enabled and choose HyperCache-W > Properties. 2. Type a new value for each parameter you want to change. For more information, see Configuring HyperCache-W on page

144 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Disabling your HyperCache-W Resource The HyperCache-W > Disable option causes the cache to be flushed, and once completely flushed, removes the cache resource. Because there is no dynamic free space expansion when the cache resource is full, you can use this option to disable your current cache resource and then manually create a larger one. If you want to temporarily suspend the HyperCache-W, use the HyperCache-W > Suspend option instead. You must use the HyperCache-W > Resume option to begin using the HyperCache-W again. Using HyperCache-R The HyperCache-R option offers two methods to improve performance, Read Cache and Prefetch. Read Cache Read Cache is an intelligent, policy-driven, disk-based staging mechanism that automatically remaps hot or frequently used areas of disks to high-speed storage devices, such as RAM disks, NVRAM, or Solid State Disks (SSDs). This results in enhanced read/write performance for the applications accessing the storage. It also enables you to manage your storage network with a minimal number of high-speed storage devices by leveraging their performance capabilities. When you configure the Read Cache method, you divide your virtual or service-enabled disk into zones of equal size. Then the HyperCache-R storage is automatically created on the specified high-speed disk. HyperCache-R storage is divided into zones equal in size to the zones on the virtual or service-enabled disk, for example 32 MB, and is provisioned to the disk. Reads and writes to each zone are monitored on the virtual or service-enabled disk. Based on the statistics collected, the application determines the most frequently accessed zones and re-maps the data from these hot disk segments to the HyperCache-R storage located on the high-speed disk. The result is enhanced read/write performance for the application accessing the storage. Using the continually collected statistics, if it is determined that the corresponding hot disk segment is no longer hot, the data from the high performance disk moves back to its original zone on the virtual or service-enabled disk. Prefetch Prefetch enables pre-fetching of data for clients. This feature enables clients to read ahead consecutively, which can result in improved performance because the data is ready from the anticipated read as soon as the next request is received from the client. This reduces the latency of the command and improve the sequential-read benchmarks in most cases. Prefetch might not be helpful if the client is already submitting sequential reads with multiple outstanding commands. However, the stop-and-wait case, with one read outstanding, can often improve dramatically by enabling Prefetch. Prefetch does not affect writing or random reading. Applications that copy large files, such as video streaming, and applications that back up files are examples of read sequential reads that might benefit from Prefetch. 136

145 Chapter 12: Performance Configuring a HyperCache-R To configure HyperCache-R: 1. Right-click a SAN Resource and choose HyperCache-R > Enable. For multiple SAN Resources, right-click the SAN Resources object and choose HyperCache-R > Enable. 2. Choose a HyperCache-R method. 3. For Prefetch only, set Prefetch properties. These properties control how the prefetching or reading ahead, is done. While you may need to adjust the default settings to enhance performance, Promise has determined that the defaults shown here are best suited for most disks and applications. Maximum prefetch chains Specifies the number of locations the disk to reads from. Maximum read ahead Specifies the maximum per chain. This setting can override the Read ahead option. Read ahead Specifies how much is read ahead at a time. No matter the setting, you cannot read more than the Maximum read ahead setting enables. Chain Timeout Specifies how long the system waits before freeing up a chain. 4. Read Cache only. Choose the storage pool or physical devices from which to create this HyperCache-R. 5. Read Cache only. Choose how you want to create the HyperCache-R. Note that the HyperCache-R cannot be expanded. Therefore, you should allocate enough space for your SAN resource, taking into account future growth. If you outgrow your HyperCache-R, you must disable it and then recreate it. 137

146 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Custom You choose which physical devices to use and designate how much space to allocate from each. Express Automatically creates the HyperCache-R storage using the criteria you choose: Select different drive VTrak S3000 looks for space on another hard disk. Select drives from different adapter/channel VTrak S3000 looks for space on another hard disk only if it is on a separate adapter or channel. Select any available drive VTrak S3000 looks for space on any disk, including the original. This option is useful if you have mapped a device, such as a RAID subsystem, that appears as a single physical device. 6. Read Cache only. Choose the disk to use for the HyperCache-R storage. If you chose Custom, you can piece together space from multiple disks. 7. Read Cache only. Enter configuration information about the zones. Size of each zone Indicates how large each zone should be. Reads and writes to each zone on the disk are monitored. Based on the statistics collected, the application determines the most frequently accessed zones and re-maps the data from these hot zones to the HyperCache-R storage. Check your application server to determine how much data is read or written at one time. The block size used by the application should match the size of each zone. Minimum stay time Indicates the minimum amount of time data remains in the HyperCache-R before being moved back to its original zone once it is determined that the zone is no longer hot. 138

147 Chapter 12: Performance 8. Read Cache only. Enter configuration information about zone access. Access type Indicates whether the zone should be monitored for reads, writes, or both. Access intensity Indicates how to determine if a zone is hot. The number of I/Os performed at the site uses the amount of read and write data transferred as a determining factor for each zone. 9. Confirm your settings and click the Finish button. Check the Status of HyperCache-R To view the current status of your HyperCache-R, click the HyperCache-R tab for a configured resource. Note that if you manually suspend HyperCache-R from the Console when the device configured with the HyperCache-R option is running normally, the status on the HyperCache-R tab displays Not Accessible (Offline). 139

148 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual To view statistics about the zone, click the HyperCache-R Statistics tab: The information displayed is initially for the current interval: hour, day, week, or month. You can go backward, and then forward, to see any particular interval. You can also view multiple intervals by moving backward to a previous interval and then clicking the Play button to see everything from that point to the present interval. To see more detail, click the Detail View button. The information is presented with more granularity, for smaller amounts of the disk. If HyperCache-R is being used in conjunction with Fibre Channel or iscsi failover and a failover has occurred, the HyperCache-R Statistics are not displayed while in a failover state. This is because the server that took over does not contain the failed server s information on the HyperCache-R Statistics. As a result, the Console displays empty statistics for the primary server while the secondary has taken over. Once the failed server is restored, the statistics display properly. This action does not affect the functionality of the HyperCache-R option while in a failover state. HyperCache-R Properties To configure HyperCache-R properties, right-click the storage server (the VTrak appliance) and choose HyperCache-R. If HyperCache-R is currently enabled. If your HyperCache-R was set up using the Read Cache method, you can choose the Properties option to configure the Zone and Access policies. If your HyperCache-R was set up using the Prefetch method, you can set the Prefetch Properties. For more information on these parameters, see Configuring a HyperCache-R on page 137. Disabling HyperCache-R To permanently stop HyperCache-R for the specific SAN resource choose HyperCache-R > Disable. Because there is no dynamic free space expansion when the HyperCache-R is full, you can use this option to disable your current HyperCache-R and then manually create a larger one. To temporarily suspend HyperCache-R, choose HyperCache-R > Suspend option instead. Use the HyperCache-R > Resume option to begin using HyperCache-R again. 140

149 Chapter 13: Mirroring This chapter covers the following topics: Synchronous Mirroring (page 141) Asynchronous Mirroring (page 142) Mirroring Requirements (page 143) Creating Cache Resources (page 149) Checking Mirroring Status (page 150) Swapping the Primary Disk with the Mirrored Copy (page 151) Promoting the Mirrored Copy to an Independent Virtual Drive (page 151) Recovering from a Mirroring Hardware Failure (page 151) Replacing a Disk that is Part of an Active Mirror Configuration (page 152) Replacing a Failed Physical Disk without Rebooting (page 152) Expanding the Primary Disk (page 153) Manually Synchronizing a Mirror (page 153) Setting Mirror Re-synchronization Priority (page 153) Rebuilding a Mirror (page 153) Suspending and Resuming Mirroring (page 153) Changing your Mirroring Configuration Options (page 154) Removing a Mirror Configuration (page 154) Mirroring and Failover (page 154) Mirroring provides high availability by minimizing the down time that can occur if a physical disk fails. The mirror can be defined with disks that are not necessarily identical to each other in terms of vendor, type, or even interface: SCSI, FC, or iscsi. With mirroring, the primary disk is the disk that is used to read/write data for a SAN Client and the mirrored copy is a copy of the primary. Both disks are attached to a single VTrak appliance and are considered a mirrored pair. If the primary disk fails, the disks swap roles so that the mirrored copy becomes the primary disk. There are two Mirroring options: Synchronous Mirroring Asynchronous Mirroring Synchronous Mirroring The Synchronous Mirroring option offers the ability to define a synchronous mirror for any VTrak S3000-managed disk, whether virtualized or service-enabled. In the Synchronous Mirroring design, each time data is written to a designated disk, the same data is simultaneously written to another disk. This disk maintains an exact copy of the primary disk. In the event that the primary disk is unable to read/write data when requested to by a SAN Client, VTrak S3000 swaps data functions to the mirrored copy disk. 141

150 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Asynchronous Mirroring The Asynchronous Mirroring Option offers the ability to define a near real-time mirror for any VTrak S3000-managed virtual disk or service-enabled disk, over long distances between data centers. When you configure an asynchronous mirror, you create a dedicated cache resource and associate it to a VTrak S3000-managed disk. Once the mirror is created, the primary and secondary disks are synchronized. This process does not involve the application server. After the synchronization is complete, all write-requests from the associated application server are sequentially delivered to the dedicated cache resource. This data is then committed to both the primary and its mirror as a separate background process. For added protection, the cache resource can also be mirrored. 142

151 Chapter 13: Mirroring Mirroring Requirements The following are the requirements for setting up a mirroring configuration: The mirrored devices must be composed of one or more hard disks. The mirrored devices must both be accessible from the same VTrak appliance. The mirrored devices must be the same size. If you try to expand the primary disk, VTrak S3000 also expands the mirrored copy to the same size. A mirror of a disk with thin provisioning must be another disk with thin provisioning. Mirror Setup You can enable mirroring for a single SAN Resource or you can use the batch feature to enable mirroring for multiple SAN Resources. You can also enable mirroring for an existing snapshot resource, cache resource, or incoming replica resource. Important For asynchronous mirroring, if you want to preserve the write order of data that is being mirrored asynchronously, create a group for your SAN Resources and enable HyperCache-W for the group. This is useful for large databases that span over multiple devices. In such situations, the entire group of devices is acting as one huge device that contains the database. When changes are made to the database, it may involve different places on different devices, and the write order must be preserved over the group of devices to preserve database integrity. 1. For a single SAN Resource, right-click the resource and choose Mirror > Add. For multiple SAN Resources, right-click the SAN Resources object and choose Mirror > Add. For an existing snapshot resource or cache resource, right-click the SAN Resource and choose Snapshot Resource or Cache Resource > Mirror > Add. 2. SAN Resources only. Choose the type of mirrored copy to create. 143

152 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 3. Choose the storage pool or physical devices from which to create the mirror. 144

153 Chapter 13: Mirroring 4. Choose how you want to create this mirror. Custom You choose which physical devices to use and lets you designate how much space to allocate from each. Express Automatically creates the Mirrored Copy using the criteria you choose: Select different drive Looks for space on another hard disk. Select drives from different adapter/channel Looks for space on another hard disk only if it is on a separate adapter or channel. Select any available drive Looks for space on any disk, including the original. This option is useful if you have mapped a device, such as a RAID subsystem, that looks like a single physical device. If you choose Custom, you see the following series of windows: 145

154 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Choose an entirely unallocated disk or partially unallocated disk. You can choose only one disk at a time from this dialog box. After choosing the parameters for the first disk, you can add more disks. Indicate how much space to allocate from this disk. Click the Add More button if you need to add more space to this mirrored disk. If you choose to add more disks, you return to the physical device selection screen. In the first window, choose either an entirely unallocated disk or partially unallocated disk. You can choose only one disk at a time from this dialog box. After choosing the parameters for the first disk, you can add more disks. In the next window, indicate how much space to allocate from this disk. In the next window, click the Add More button add more space to this mirrored disk. When you add more disks, you go back to the physical device selection screen where you can choose another disk. 5. SAN Resources only. Indicate if you want to use synchronous or asynchronous mirroring. If a cache resource already exists, mirroring automatically sets to asynchronous mode. If no cache resource exists, you can use either synchronous or asynchronous mode. If you choose asynchronous mode, you must create a cache resource. The Wizard guides you through the process. 146

155 Chapter 13: Mirroring If you chose synchronous mode for a resource without a cache and later create a cache, the mirror switches to asynchronous mode. 6. Check the box if to monitor the mirroring process. Important If you enable asynchronous mirroring for multiple resources that are being used by the same application, for example, your Oracle database spans three disks, to ensure write order consistency you must first create a group. You must enable HyperCache-W for the group and add all related resources to it before enabling asynchronous mirroring for each resource. By doing so, all resources share the same read/write cache and are flushed at the same time, guaranteeing consistency of the data. If you monitor the mirroring process, evaluate the I/O performance to decide if I/O to the mirror disk is lagging beyond an acceptable limit. If it is, mirroring is suspended so it does not impact the primary storage. Monitor mirroring process every n seconds Specifies how frequently the system should check the lag time, the delay between I/Os to the primary disk and to the mirror. System performance is not affected by the number of times you check it. On systems with very low I/Os, a higher number result in a more accurate representation. Maximum lag time for mirror I/O - Specifies an acceptable lag time. 147

156 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Suspend mirroring when the failure threshold reaches n% Specifies what percentage of I/Os to pass the lag time test. For example, you set the percentage to 10% and the maximum lag time to 15 milliseconds. During the test period, 100 I/Os occurred and 20 of them took longer than 15 milliseconds to update the mirror disk. With a 20% failure rate, mirroring would be suspended. Important If a mirror becomes out-of-sync because of a disk failure or an I/O error, rather than having too much lag time, the mirror is not suspended. Because the mirror is still active, re-synchronization is attempted based on the global mirroring properties that are set for the server (VTrak appliance). For more information, see Setting Global Mirroring Options on page If mirroring is suspended, specify when re-synchronization should be attempted. Re-synchronization can be started based on: Time Every n minutes/hours The default is every four hours I/O activity When I/O is less than n KB or MB If you choose both re-synchronization methods, the time applies before the I/O activity level. If you do not choose either re-synchronization method, the mirror stays suspended until you manually synchronize it. If you choose one or both re-synchronization methods, specify how many times the system should retry the resynchronization if it fails to complete. When the system initiates re-synchronization, it does not check lag time and mirroring is not suspended if there is too much lag time. If you manually resume mirroring, the system monitors the process during synchronization and check lag time. Depending upon your monitoring policy, mirroring is suspended if the lag time gets above the acceptable limit. 8. Specify if you want to use the Throughput Control option. Important If VTrak S3000 is restarted or the server (VTrak appliance) experiences a failover while attempting to resynchronize, the mirror remains suspended. 148

157 Chapter 13: Mirroring. 9. Check the Enable Throughput Control box to display the following screen and set the throughput control policy to be used to monitor the synchronization process. 10. Confirm your settings and click the Finish button. Creating Cache Resources The cache resource wizard launches automatically when you configure Asynchronous Mirroring but you do not have a cache resource. 1. To create a cache resource: Right-click a SAN Resource and choose HyperCache-W > Enable. To create multiple SAN Resources: Right-click the SAN Resources object and choose HyperCache-W > Add. 2. Choose how you want to create the cache resource. 149

158 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Note that the cache resource cannot be expanded. Therefore, you should allocate enough space for your SAN resource, taking into account future growth. If you outgrow your cache resource, you must disable it and then recreate it. Custom You choose which physical devices to use and lets you designate how much space to allocate from each. Express Automatically creates the cache resource using the criteria you choose: Select different drive Looks for space on another hard disk. Select drives from different adapter/channel Looks for space on another hard disk only if it is on a separate adapter or channel. Select any available drive Looks for space on any disk, including the original. This option is useful if you have mapped a device, such as a RAID device, that looks like a single physical device. 3. Confirm that all information is correct and then click the Finish button. To mirror your cache resource: Highlight the SAN Resource and choose HyperCache-W > Mirror > Add. Checking Mirroring Status To see the current status of your mirroring configuration, click the General tab for a mirrored resource. Mirroring configuration status. Synchronized Both disks are synchronized. This is the normal state. Not synchronized A failure in one of the disks has occurred or synchronization has not yet started. If there is a failure in the Primary Disk, the Primary Disk is swapped with the Mirrored Copy. If the synchronization is occurring, you see a progress bar along with the percentage that is completed. 150

159 Chapter 13: Mirroring Note To update the mirror synchronization status, refresh the Console screen. Choose View > Refresh. Swapping the Primary Disk with the Mirrored Copy Swapping the primary disk refers to the action of reversing the roles between the primary disk and the mirrored copy. You must do this if you plan to perform maintenance on the primary disk or if you need to remove the primary disk. To reverse the roles of the primary disk and the mirrored copy, right-click the SAN Resource and choose Mirror > Swap. Promoting the Mirrored Copy to an Independent Virtual Drive To promote a mirrored copy means to break the mirrored pair and convert the mirrored copy into an independent virtual drive. The new virtual drive has all of the properties of a regular virtual drive. To break the mirrored pair and convert the mirrored copy into an independent virtual drive, right-click the mirrored drive and choose Mirror > Promote. This feature is useful as a safety net when you perform major system maintenance or upgrades. Simply promote the mirrored copy and you can perform maintenance on the primary disk without worrying about anything going wrong. If there is a problem, you can use the newly promoted virtual drive to serve your clients. Caution Before promoting a mirrored drive, all clients should first detach or unmount from the drive. Promoting a drive while clients are attached or mounted might cause the file system to become corrupt on the promoted drive. If you are copying files over in Windows to a mirrored SAN Resource, you must wait for the cache to flush before promoting the mirrored drive. If you do not wait for the cache to flush, you might cause errors in the files. If you are using asynchronous mirroring, you can promote the mirror only when: The HyperCache-W option is suspended. There is no data in the cache resource to be flushed. When you promote the mirror of a replica resource, the replication configuration is maintained. Depending upon the replication schedule, when you promote the mirror of a replica resource, the mirrored copy might not be an identical image of the replication source. In addition, the mirrored copy might contain corrupt data or an incomplete image if the last replication was not successful or if replication is currently working. Make sure that the last replication was successful and that replication is finished before you promote the mirrored copy. Recovering from a Mirroring Hardware Failure Replacing a Failed Disk If one of the mirrored disks has failed and requires replacement: 1. Right-click the SAN resource and choose Mirror > Remove to remove the mirroring configuration. 2. Replace the failed disk drive. The failed disk is always the mirrored copy because when the Primary Disk fails, the primary disk swaps with the mirrored copy. Important To replace the disk drive without having to reboot your VTrak appliance, see Replacing a Failed Physical Disk without Rebooting on page Run the Create SAN Resource Mirror Wizard to create a new mirroring configuration. 151

160 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Fixing a Minor Disk Failure If one of the mirrored disks has a minor failure, such as a power loss: 1. Turn the power on, plug in the drive, or perform the needed corrective action. 2. Right-click the SAN Resource and choose Mirror > Synchronize. That action re-synchronizes the disks and restarts the mirroring. Replacing a Disk that is Part of an Active Mirror Configuration If you need to replace the Primary Disk in an active mirror configuration: 1. Right-click the SAN Resource and choose Mirror > Swap to reverse the roles of the disks and make it a Mirrored Copy. 2. Choose Mirror > Remove to cancel mirroring. 3. Replace the disk. Important To replace the disk without having to reboot your VTrak appliance, refer to Replacing a Failed Physical Disk without Rebooting on page Run the Create SAN Resource Mirror Wizard to create a new mirroring configuration. Replacing a Failed Physical Disk without Rebooting You can replace a failed physical disk drive without rebooting your VTrak appliance. To determine which physical disk to remove, execute the following command to cause the disk drive s light to blink. hdparm -t /dev/sd# Where # represents a, b, c, d, and so on, depending on the order of the disks. You must remove the SCSI device from the Linux OS. For the Linux 2.4 kernel, type the following command: echo scsi remove-single-device A:C:S:L > /proc/scsi/scsi A C S L stands for Adapter, Channel, SCSI, and LUN. This can be found in the Console. For the Linux 2.6 kernel, type the following command: echo "1" > /sys/class/scsi_device/deviceid/device/delete Where DeviceID is obtained from ls /sys/class/scsi-device For example: echo "1" > /sys/class/scsi_device/1:0:0:0/device/delete To add the device so that Linux recognizes the drive, Execute the following command: echo "scsi add-single-device x x x x">cat /proc/scsi/scsi. Where x x x x stands for A C S L numbers: Adapter, Channel, SCSI, and LUN number. 5. After adding the drive, rescan the adapter to which the device was added. In the Console, right-click AdaptecSCSI Adapter.x and choose Rescan. Where x is the adapter number the device is on. 152

161 Chapter 13: Mirroring Expanding the Primary Disk The mirrored devices must be the same size. If you want to enlarge the primary disk, you must also enlarge the mirrored copy to the same size. When you use the Expand SAN Resource Wizard, it automatically launches the Create SAN Resource Mirror Wizard so that you can enlarge the Mirrored Copy as well. Important As you expand the primary disk, the wizard only shows half the available disk space because it reserves an equal amount of space for the mirrored drive. If the mirror is offline, and you are expanding a thin-provisioning-enabled primary disk, the mirror disk is removed. If this occurs, you must recreate the mirror in order to synchronize your data. Manually Synchronizing a Mirror This option re-synchronizes a mirror and restarts the mirroring process once it is synchronized. Use it when one of the mirrored disks has a minor failure, such as a power loss. 1. Turn the power on, plug in the drive, or perform the needed corrective action. 2. Right-click the resource and choose Mirror > Synchronize. During the synchronization, the system monitors the process and checks lag time. Depending upon your monitoring policy, mirroring is suspended if the lag time rises above the acceptable limit. Important If your mirror disk is offline, you cannot manually add storage to a thin-provisioning-enabled primary disk. Setting Mirror Re-synchronization Priority To set the re-synchronization priority for pending mirror synchronization, choose Mirror > Priority. The Mirror re-synchronization priority screen displays, allowing you to prioritize the order in which the device or group begins mirroring, if two re-synchronization operations start at the same time. This option can be set for a single resource or a single group via the Mirror submenu. Rebuilding a Mirror This option rebuilds a mirror from beginning to end and starts the mirroring process once it is synchronized. The rebuild feature is useful if the mirror disk you want to synchronize is from a different VTrak appliance. A rebuild might be necessary if your disaster recovery site has been servicing clients due to some type of issue, such as a storm or power outage, at your primary data center. Once the problem is resolved, the mirror is out of sync. Because the mirror disk is located on a different appliance in a remote location, the local appliance must rebuild the mirror from beginning to end. Before you rebuild a mirror, you must stop all client activity. After rebuilding the mirror, swap the mirror so that the primary data center can service clients again. To rebuild the mirror, right-click a resource and choose Mirror > Rebuild. To see the current settings, click the resource s General tab and look at the Mirror Synchronization Status field. Suspending and Resuming Mirroring You can suspend mirroring for an individual resource or for multiple resources. When you manually suspend a mirror, the system does not attempt to re-synchronize, even if you have a re-synchronization policy. You must resume the mirror in order to synchronize. When you resume mirroring, the mirror is synchronized before mirroring is resumed. During the synchronization, the system monitors the process and check lag time. Depending upon your monitoring policy, mirroring is suspended if the lag time gets above the acceptable limit. 153

162 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual To suspend or resume mirroring for an individual resource, right-click on a resource and choose Mirror > Suspend or Mirror > Resume. To see the current settings, click the resource s General tab and look at the Mirror Synchronization Status field. To suspend or resume mirroring for multiple resources: 3. Right-click the SAN Resources object and choose Mirror > Suspend or Mirror > Resume. 4. Choose the appropriate resources. 5. If the resource is in a group, check the box to include all of the group members enabled with mirroring. Changing your Mirroring Configuration Options Setting Global Mirroring Options You can set global mirroring options that affect system performance during mirroring. While the default settings should be optimal for most configurations, you can adjust the settings for special situations. To set global mirroring properties for a server (VTrak appliance): 1. Right-click the server and choose Properties. 2. Click the Performance tab. 3. Choose one of the following options: Use [n] outstanding commands of [n] KB Sets the number of commands being processed at one time and the I/O size. This must be a multiple of the sector size. Synchronize Out-of-Sync Mirrors Determines how often the system checks and attempts to re-synchronize active out-of-sync mirrors, how often it should retry synchronization if the operation fails, and whether to include replica mirrors. These settings are only used for active mirrors. If a mirror is suspended because the lag time exceeds the acceptable limit, that re-synchronization policy applies instead. Changing Properties for a Specific Resource You can change the following mirroring configuration for a resource: Policy for monitoring the mirroring process Conditions for re-synchronization To change the configuration: 1. Right-click the primary disk and choose Mirror > Properties. 2. Make the appropriate changes and click the OK button. Removing a Mirror Configuration To delete the mirrored copy and cancel mirroring, right-click the SAN Resource and choose Mirror > Remove. You cannot access the mirrored copy after you remove it. Mirroring and Failover If mirroring is in progress during failover/recovery, mirroring restarts from where it left off once the failover/recovery is complete. If the mirror is synchronized but there is a Fibre disconnection between the server (VTrak appliance) and storage, the mirror may become unsynchronized. It re-synchronizes automatically after failover/recovery. A synchronized mirror always remains synchronized during a recovery process. 154

163 Chapter 14: Snapshot Resources This chapter covers the following topics: Creating a Snapshot Resource (page 155) Checking the Status of a Snapshot Resource (page 160) Protecting your Snapshot Resources (page 160) Using the Advanced Backup Feature (page 161) Copying a SAN Resource (page 164) Groups (page 169) The concept of performing a snapshot is similar to taking a picture. When we take a photograph, we are capturing a moment in time and transferring this moment in time to a photographic medium, even while changes are occurring to the object we focused our picture on. Similarly, a snapshot of an entire device enables us to capture data at any given moment in time and move it to either tape or another storage medium, while allowing data to be written to the device. The basic function of the snapshot engine is to allow point-in-time, frozen images to be created of data volumes (virtual drives) using minimal storage space. The snapshot initially uses no disk space. As new data is written to the source volume, the old data blocks are moved to a temporary snapshot storage area. By combining the snapshot storage with the source volume, the data can be recreated exactly at it appeared at the time the snapshot was taken. For added protection, a Snapshot Resource can also be mirrored. A trigger is an event that notifies the application when it is time to perform a snapshot of a virtual device. VTrak S3000 s Replication, Snapshot, and Snapshot Copy backup options all trigger snapshots. Creating a Snapshot Resource Each SAN Resource can have one Snapshot Resource. The Snapshot Resource supports up to 4TB and is shared by all of the VTrak S3000 options that use Snapshot (Replication, Snapshot, and Snapshot Copy backup). Each snapshot initially uses no disk space. As new data is written to the source volume, the old data blocks are moved to the Snapshot Resource. Therefore, it is not necessary to have 100% of the size of the SAN Resource reserved as a Snapshot Resource. The amount of space initially reserved for each Snapshot Resource is calculated as follows: Size of SAN Resource Reserved for Snapshot Resource Less than 500 MB 100% 500 MB to 2 GB 50% 2 GB or more 20% Using the table above, if you create a 10 GB SAN Resource, your initial Snapshot Resource is 2 GB but you can set the Snapshot Resource to expand automatically, as needed. If you create a SAN Resource that is less than 500 MB, the amount of space reserved for the Snapshot Resource is 100% of the virtual drive size. This is because a smaller-sized volume can overfill quickly, leaving no time for the auto-expansion to take effect. By reserving a Snapshot Resource equal to 100% of the SAN Resource, the snapshot is able to free up enough space so normal write operations can continue. If you do not create a Snapshot Resource for your SAN Resource, when you configure Replication, Snapshot, Snapshot Copy, or backup, the Snapshot Wizard launches first, allowing you to create it. You can create a Snapshot Resource for a single SAN Resource or you can use the batch feature to create snapshot resources for multiple SAN Resources: 1. To create a Snapshot Resource, do one of the following actions: For a single SAN Resource, right-click the Resource and choose Snapshot Resource > Create. For multiple SAN Resources, right-click the SAN Resources object and choose Snapshot Resource > Create. 155

164 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 2. Choose the storage pool or physical device you want to use to create this Snapshot Resource. 3. Choose how you want to create this Snapshot Resource: Custom You choose which physical devices to use and lets you designate how much space to allocate from each. Express You designate how much space to allocate and it automatically creates a Snapshot Resource using an available device. Select different drive - The VTrak appliance looks for space on another hard disk. Select drives from different adapter/channel The VTrak appliance looks for space on another hard disk only if it is on a separate adapter or channel. Select any available drive The VTrak appliance looks for space on any disk, including the original. This option is useful if you have mapped a device, such as a RAID device, that looks like a single physical device to your VTrak appliance. If you choose Custom, you see the following windows: 156

165 Chapter 14: Snapshot Resources Choose either an entirely unallocated device or partially unallocated device. Indicate how much space to allocate from this device. Click the Add More button to add another physical disk to this Snapshot Resource. You go back to the physical device selection screen where you can choose another disk. 4. Verify the physical devices you have chosen. 5. Determine whether the VTrak appliance should expand your Snapshot Resource if it runs low on space and how to expand it If you want your VTrak appliance to automatically expand the Snapshot Resource when space is running low, set the threshold level and make sure the Automatically allocate more space for the Snapshot Resource box is checked. Then, determine the amount of space to be allocated for each expansion. You can set this to be a specific size (in MB) or a percentage of the size of the Snapshot Resource. There is no limit to the number of times a Snapshot Resource can be expanded. 157

166 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Once the low space threshold is triggered, the system attempts to expand the resource by allocating more space. The time required to accomplish this may be in milliseconds or even seconds, depending on how busy the system is. If expansion fails, old Snapshots are deleted to make space for new ones. To prevent this from happening, Promise recommends that you allow enough time for expansion after the low space threshold is reached. We recommend that your safety margin be at least five seconds. That means from the time the low-space threshold is reached, while data is writing to the drive at maximum throughput, it takes a minimum of five seconds to fill up the rest of the drive. Therefore, if the maximum throughput is 50 MB/s, the threshold should be set for when the space is below 250 MB. If the throughput is lower, you can reduce the allowance accordingly. Important If you do not choose automatic expansion, old Snapshots are deleted to prevent the Snapshot Resource from running out of space. 6. Configure what your VTrak appliance should do if your Snapshot Resource runs out of space. The default is Always maintain write operations. If you set the Snapshot Resource policy on a near-line mirror or replica, the default is Preserve all Snapshots. This only occurs if you have reached the maximum allowable size for your Snapshot Resource or if you chose not to expand it. Once the maximum is reached, the earliest Snapshots are deleted. When a Snapshot is deleted, journal data is merged together with a previous Snapshot, or a newer Snapshot, if no previous Snapshots exist. If a Snapshot Resource is associated with a member of a group enabled with Snapshot, the earliest Snapshot is deleted for all of the resources. If you choose Preserve all Snapshots or Preserve recent Snapshots, the system prevents any new writes from getting to the disk once the Snapshot Resource runs out of space and it cannot allocate any more. As a result, clients can experience write errors. If the client is a production machine, this may not be desirable. 158

167 Chapter 14: Snapshot Resources 7. Check the Enable Snapshot Notification box if you want to use Snapshot Notification. Snapshot Notification works with the Snapshot Agents to initiate a snapshot request to a SAN client. The system notifies the client to quiet activity on the disk before a Snapshot is taken. Snapshot Notification guarantees that you get a consistent image of your data. 8. Confirm that your settings are correct and then click the Finish button. A new Snapshot tab appears for this SAN Resource. 159

168 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Checking the Status of a Snapshot Resource To see how much of your Snapshot Resource is currently being used and your expansion methods, click the Snapshot tab for the SAN Resource. Because Snapshot Resources record block-level changes, rather than file-level changes, you may not see the Usage Percentage decrease when you delete files. This is because deleted files really still exist on the disk. The Usage Percentage bar colors indicate usage percentage in relation to the threshold level: Green indicates the current usage is less than 70% of the threshold. Blue indicates the usage is between 70% and 99% of the threshold level. Red indicates the usage has reached the threshold level. Note that Snapshot resources are marked off-line if the physical resource from which they were created is disconnected from a single server (VTrak appliance) in the failover set before they fail over to the secondary server. Protecting your Snapshot Resources If the physical disk that contains a snapshot resource fails, you can still access your SAN Resource, but the snapshot data already in the Snapshot Resource becomes invalid. This means that you are unable to roll back to a point-in-time image of your data. However, you can protect your snapshot resources with the Mirroring option. With Mirroring, each time data is written to the Snapshot Resource, the same data is also written to another disk which maintains an exact copy of the Snapshot Resource. If the primary Snapshot Resource disk fails, the VTrak appliance swaps to the mirrored copy. To mirror a Snapshot Resource, right-click the SAN Resource and choose Snapshot Resource > Mirror > Add. Options for Snapshot Resources When you right-click a logical resource that has a Snapshot Resource, you see the Snapshot Resource menu with the following options: Reinitialize Reclaims space for your Snapshot Resource. You only need to reinitialize your Snapshot Resource if you are not mirroring it, and it went offline but is now back online. Expand Manually expands the size of your Snapshot Resource. Shrink Reduces the size of your Snapshot Resource. This is useful if your snapshot resource does not need all of the space currently allocated to it. Based on current usage, when you choose the Shrink option, the system calculates the maximum amount of space that can be used to shrink the Snapshot Resource. The amount of disk space saved by this operation is calculated from the last block 160

169 Chapter 14: Snapshot Resources of data where data is written. If there are gaps between blocks of data, the gaps are not included in the amount of space saved. Delete Deletes the Snapshot Resource for this logical resource. Properties Changes your automatic expansion and snapshot notification policies. Mirror Protects your Snapshot Resource by creating a mirror of it. Using the Advanced Backup Feature A block-level backup, or image backup, is a high performance form of backup where the data sectors of a hard disk, as opposed to files, are copied to the backup media. An image backup is a full backup of an entire disk or volume. With VTrak S3000 s Advanced Backup feature, you can easily back up just those block-level changes represented by each Snapshot. This advanced backup feature enables standard third-party backup software to perform incremental and differential backups at the block-level. Both methods begin with a full backup as a foundation. During an incremental backup, only changed blocks are backed up. For differential backups, all blocks changed since the last full backup are backed up. Advanced Backup is not a backup application. It is a Snapshot option working in conjunction with a third-party backup application to perform the data protection work. Advanced Backup works with any Linux-based third party backup application that supports a raw device connection, since backup data is received and sent through this connection. Also, the backup application must be capable of running a preexecution script that can execute a series of commands before a backup operation begins. Examples of Linux applications that have been tested with VTrak S3000 include: BakBone s NetVault version release R NetVault 6.5 release V650_R Veritas NetBackup version 3.4.1GA With VTrak S3000, the backup application does not know whether it is performing an incremental or differential image backup. The application assumes that it is performing a full image backup. VTrak S3000 controls the information that the backup application receives. Data is fed through the raw device interface to the backup application. isbkconfig isbkconfig is VTrak S3000 s utility program that configures the type of backup to perform: full, incremental or differential. The utility runs on the VTrak S3000 appliance. isbkconfig creates the raw device interface for the advanced backup in the /dev/isbackup directory with the following naming convention: vdevvidfull (or vdevvidincr or vdevviddiff) Where vid is the virtual ID of the disk drive that is backed up and full incr diff is the type of backup that is performed. Single Disk Backup Important Be sure to stop all I/Os to the source resource before starting this operation. If you have I/Os occurring during the shrinking process, the space used for the Snapshot Resource might increase or the operation might fail. To configure backup for a single disk: 1. Determine the virtual ID (vid) of your disk drive. Go to the logical (SAN) resource and click the General tab. 2. Enable Snapshot and set a schedule to create a Snapshot just prior to each scheduled backup whether full, incremental, or differential. 161

170 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 3. Configure your full image backup by adding the following commands into the backup software s pre-execution script that runs before the full image backup job begins: isbkconfig vid full isbkconfig vid verify For example, if the vid of the hard disk is 2, the commands are: isbkconfig 2 full isbkconfig 2 verify 4. For incremental backups, add the following commands into each pre-execution script that runs before your incremental backup jobs begin: isbkconfig vid incr isbkconfig vid verify For differential backups, use the following commands instead: isbkconfig vid diff isbkconfig vid verify 5. In your backup software, schedule and begin your backups of the raw device interface created by isbkconfig. You should have at least one Snapshot created on the vid before the backup operation because the backup operation backs up data from the latest Snapshot. 6. In your backup software s post-execution script, run the following command to clear the /dev/isbackup directory after the backup and verification are complete. isbkconfig vid deconfig Single Disk Restore To restore a single disk: 1. Determine the virtual ID (vid) of your disk drive. Go to the logical (SAN) resource and click the General tab. 2. Run the following commands from your server (VTrak appliance): isbkconfig vid restore isbkconfig vid verify For example, if the vid of the hard disk is 2, the commands are: isbkconfig 2 restore isbkconfig 2 verify If the vid is not the same as your previously backed up vid, use the following commands to enforce the restore operation: isbkconfig vid restore --force isbkconfig 2 verify Important If you restore to a different virtual device, the size of the backed-up device and the device you are restoring to must be the same. 3. Before the restore operation, be sure that the virtual disk is not attached to any VTrak S3000 Client. SAN and IP clients Stop the VTrak S3000 Client or detaching the virtual drive from the Client Monitor. Fibre Channel clients The operating system determines how you disable the device. Linux Run the command echo 'scsi remove-single-device...' Windows 2000 In the Windows Device Manager, right-click the virtual disk and choose Disable. 4. In your backup software, begin your restore of the raw device interfaces created by isbkconfig. If you are using incremental backups, you must restore the full backup first followed by the first incremental backup, then the second, etc. If you are using differential backups, you must restore the full backup first followed by the latest differential backup. 162

171 Chapter 14: Snapshot Resources You must run the following between each restore operation: isbkconfig deconfig isbkconfig vid restore isbkconfig vid verify 5. After the restore and verification are complete, run the following command to clear out the /dev/isbackup directory. isbkconfig vid deconfig 6. Attach the device to the Client. SAN and IP clients Start the VTrak S3000 Client or attaching the virtual drive from the VTrak S3000 Client Monitor. Fibre Channel clients The operating system determines how you enable the device. Windows 2000 In the Windows Device Manager, right-click the VTrak S3000 virtual disk and choose Enable. Group Backup To configure backup for a database that spans multiple disk drives: 1. Determine the virtual ID (vid) of your disk drive. Go to the logical (SAN) resource and click the General tab. 2. Create a group for the drives and enable Snapshot for the group. Be sure to set a schedule to create a Snapshot just prior to each scheduled backup whether full, incremental, or differential. 3. If necessary, place your database into its archival mode such that the database can synchronize its files and can begin to journal new entries. VTrak S3000 s Snapshot Agents automatically place your database into quiet mode to ensure the transactional integrity of the database when you create a Snapshot on the drives of the group. 4. Configure your full image backup by adding the following commands into the pre-execution script. isbkconfig vid full isbkconfig vid verify These commands need to be executed once for each disk drive. In this example, there are three disk drives, so the script looks like this: isbkconfig 2 full isbkconfig 2 verify isbkconfig 3 full isbkconfig 3 verify isbkconfig 4 full isbkconfig 4 verify The pre-execution scripts of drives 3 and 4 can remain blank. All the commands are executed by drive 2 s pre-execution script. However, you can remove the isbkconfig commands for drives 3 and 4 from drive 2 s pre-execution script and place them into each disk drive s own pre-execution scripts. The isbkconfig commands can be executed at any time prior to the start of the backup of its respective disk drive. 5. For incremental and differential image backups, add the following commands into the pre-execution script. isbkconfig vid incr isbkconfig vid verify Or isbkconfig vid diff for differential backups. These commands need to be executed once for each disk drive. In this example, there are three disk drives, so the script looks like this: isbkconfig 2 incr isbkconfig 2 verify isbkconfig 3 incr isbkconfig 3 verify isbkconfig 4 incr isbkconfig 4 verify 6. Configure your backup application to perform an image backup for each disk drive using the raw device interfaces created by isbkconfig. In the example, the result is three backups, one for each disk drive. 163

172 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 7. In your backup software s post-execution script, run the following command to clear out the /dev/isbackup directory after the backup and verification are complete. isbkconfig vid deconfig Group Restore To restore snapshot-grouped disks, the same procedure applies to each disk of the group. See Single Disk Restore on page 162. Remember to detach each drive before the restore process. Reset Advanced Backup Operation The backup and restore verification process uses files in the /dev/isbackup directory that are created as a result of the backup/ restore. These files must be deleted before another backup/restore can be performed. You can delete these files by issuing the following command: isbkconfig vid deconfig If you make a mistake during any isbkconfig configuration, for example, you enter the wrong vid, you can reset everything by issuing this command. This action resets the previous configuration command for the vid. Copying a SAN Resource VTrak S3000 s Snapshot Copy option enables you to create a duplicate, independent point-in-time copy of a SAN resource without impacting application servers. The entire resource is copied to another drive, overwriting any data on the target drive. The source must have a Snapshot Resource in order to create a Snapshot Copy. If it does not have one, you are prompted to create one. 1. Right-click the SAN resource that you want to copy and choose Copy. Important We recommend that if a Snapshot Copy is being taken of a large database without the use of a Snapshot Agent, the database should reside on a journaling file system (JFS). Otherwise, under heavy I/Os, there is a possibility that the file system could be changed. That condition requires a file system check (fsck) to repair the file system. 2. Choose how you want to create the target resource. Custom You choose which physical devices to use and lets you designate how much space to allocate from each. Express Automatically creates the target for you from available hard disk segments. Select Existing Choose an existing resource. There are several restrictions as to what you can choose: The target must be the same type as the source. The target must be the same size as the source. The target cannot have any clients assigned or attached. All data on the target will be overwritten. Caution 164

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174 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual If you chose Custom, you see the following windows: You can choose only one disk at a time from this dialog box. After choosing the parameters for the first disk, you can add more disks. You must add more disks if the first disk does not have enough space. Indicate how much space to allocate from this disk. Click the Add More button to add another physical disk to this target resource. You go back to the physical device selection screen where you can choose another disk. 166

175 Chapter 14: Snapshot Resources If you chose Select Existing in step 2, you see the following window: 3. Choose a Target Resource and click the Next button. 4. Enter a name for the target resource. The name is not case sensitive. 5. Confirm that all information is correct and click the Finish button. 6. Assign the snapshot copy to a client. Important If a failover or recovery occurs when snapshot copy is taking place, the snapshot copy will fail. You must resubmit the snapshot copy afterwards. Important If you attempt to assign a snapshot copy of a virtual disk to the same Windows SAN Client more than once, the snapshot copy fails to import. This is because the import of the foreign disk uses the same disk group name as the current computer s disk group. This problem occurs with Dynamic Disks. Basic Disks do not have this issue. 167

176 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Check Snapshot Copy Status You can see the current status of your Snapshot Copy by checking the General tab of both the virtual drive you copied from or copied to. Snapshot Copy events are also written to the server s (VTrak appliance s) Event Log. Check the Event Log for status information and any errors. 168

177 Chapter 14: Snapshot Resources Groups The Group feature enables virtual drives and service enabled drives to be grouped together. You can create groups for the following reasons: VTrak S3000 management Snapshot synchronization System organization Caching with HyperCache-W Snapshot synchronization builds on VTrak S3000 s snapshot technology, which ensures point-in-time consistency for data recovery purposes. Snapshots for all resources in a group are taken at the same time whenever a snapshot is triggered. Working in conjunction with the database-aware Snapshot Agents, groups ensure transactional integrity for database or messaging files that reside on multiple disks. You can create up to 64 groups. When you create a group, you can configure Snapshot, Backup, Replication, and HyperCache-W (and, indirectly, asynchronous mirroring) for the entire group. All members of the group get configured the same way. Creating a Group To create a group: 1. In the Management Console, right-click Groups and choose New. Depending upon which options you enable, the subsequent screens let you set group policies for those options. Note You cannot enable VTrak S3000 and HyperCache-W for the same group. 2. Indicate if you want to add SAN Resources to this group. Groups with Snapshot Enabled The following notes affect groups configured for Snapshot: You cannot add a resource to a group configured for either Snapshot if the resource is already configured. Snapshot can be enabled for an existing group if members of the group have Snapshot enabled. For Groups with Snapshot enabled, if a member of the group has its own Snapshot to be updated, the member must leave the group, make the Snapshot updates individually, and then rejoin the group. 169

178 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Groups with HyperCache-W enabled The following notes affect groups configured for HyperCache-W: You cannot add a resource to a group configured for HyperCache-W if the resource is already configured for HyperCache-W. HyperCache-W can only be enabled for an existing group if members of the group do not have HyperCache-W enabled. The group has only one HyperCache-W resource. You do not see a HyperCache-W tab for the individual resources. If you want to remove a resource from a group with HyperCache-W enabled, you must first suspend HyperCache-W for the entire group. Groups with Replication Enabled The following notes affect groups configured for replication: When you create a group on the primary server (VTrak appliance), the target server gets a group also. When you add resources to a group configured for replication, you can choose any resource that is already configured for replication on the target server. Or you can choose any resource that does not have replication configured. You cannot choose a resource configured for replication to a different server. If a watermark policy is used for replication, the retry delay value configured affects each group member individually rather than the group as a whole. For example, if replication starts for the group and a group member fails during the replication process, the retry delay value takes effect. In the meantime, if another resource in the group reaches its watermark, a group replication is triggered for all group members and the retry delay becomes irrelevant. If you are using continuous replication, the group has only one Continuous Replication Resource. If a group is configured for continuous replication, you cannot add a resource to the group if the resource has continuous replication enabled. Similarly, continuous replication can only be enabled for an existing group if members of the group do not have continuous replication enabled. If you add a resource to a group that is configured for continuous replication, the system switches to periodic replication mode until the next regularly-scheduled replication takes place. Granting Access to a Group By default, only the root user and the VTrak S3000 administrators can manage SAN resources, groups, or clients. While VTrak S3000 users can add new groups, if you want a VTrak S3000 user to manage an existing group, you must grant that user access. To do this: 1. Right-click a group and choose Access Control. 2. Choose which user can manage this group. Each group can only be assigned to one VTrak S3000 user. This user has rights to perform any function on this group, including assigning, joining, and configuring storage services. Add Resources to a Group Each group can be comprised of multiple SAN Resources. Each resource can only join one group and you cannot have both types of resources in the same group. Important There is a limit of 128 resources per group. If the group is enabled for replication, the recommended limit is 50. There are several ways to add resources to a group. After you create a group, you are prompted to add resources. At any time afterwards, you can: 1. Right-click any group and choose Join. You can also right-click on any SAN Resource and choose Group > Join. 2. Choose the type of resources that join this group. If this is a group with existing members, you see a list of members instead. 3. Determine if you want to use Express Mode. If you choose Express Mode, you can choose multiple resources to join this group at the same time. After you finish choosing resources, they are automatically synchronized with the options and settings configured for the group. 170

179 Chapter 14: Snapshot Resources If you do NOT choose Express Mode, you must choose resources one-by-one. For each resource, you go through the applicable Replication and/or Backup wizards. You must manually configure each option. Snapshot is always configured automatically. 4. Choose resources to join this group. If you started the wizard from a SAN Resource instead of from a Group, you see the following window and you choose a Group, instead of a Resource. When you click the Next button, you see the options that must be activated. You go through the applicable Replication and/or Backup wizards so you can manually configure each option. Snapshot is always configured automatically. 5. Confirm all information and click the Finish button. Each resource now has a tab for each configured option except SafeCache, which shares a HyperCache-W resource as a group. By default, group members are not automatically assigned to clients. Be sure to assign your group members to the appropriate clients. Removing Resources from a Group If you want to remove a resource from a group with HyperCache-W enabled, you must wait for it to finish flushing. Or suspend HyperCache-W. Right-click the Group and choose HyperCache-W > Suspend. To remove resources from a Group: 1. Right-click any group and choose Leave. 171

180 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 2. Choose the resources to leave this group. Note For groups enabled with Backup or Replication, leaving the group does not disable Backup or Replication for the resource. 172

181 Chapter 15: Snapshots This chapter covers the following topics: Overview (page 173) Setting up for Snapshots (page 173) Checking Snapshots Status (page 174) Adding Comments or Changing Priority of Existing Snapshots (page 175) Manually Creating Snapshots (page 175) Copying Snapshots (page 176) Recovering Data using SnapshotView (page 177) Remapping a SnapshotView (page 179) Deleting a SnapshotView (page 180) Rolling Back and Rolling Forward (page 180) Changing Snapshots Policies (page 181) Deleting SnapshotViews in Batch Mode (page 181) Disabling Snapshots (page 182) Replication and Snapshots (page 182) Overview The Snapshots option protects your mission critical data, enabling you to recover data back from a previous point-in-time. Snapshots are point-in-time images of any SAN virtual drive. Using Snapshot technology, Snapshots track multiple virtual images of the same disk marked by time. If you need to retrieve a deleted file or undo data corruption, you can recreate or restore the file instantly based on any of the existing Snapshots. Snapshots guards against soft errors, non-catastrophic data loss, including the accidental deletion of files and software or virus issues leading to data corruption. Snapshot protects where high availability configurations cannot, since in creating a redundant set of data, high availability configurations also create a duplicate set of soft errors by default. Snapshots protects data from your slip-ups, from the butter fingers of employees, unforeseen glitches during backup, and from the malicious intent of viruses. The Snapshots option also provides an undo button for data processing. Traditionally, when an administrator performed operations on a data set, he makes a full backup before each dangerous step. If the step resulted in undesirable effects, the administrator had to restore the data set and start the process again. With the Snapshots option, you can easily roll-back or restore a drive to its original state. The SnapshotView feature is an extension of the Snapshots option and enables you to mount a virtual drive as of a specific pointin-time. Deleted files can be retrieved from the drive or the drive can be assigned to multiple application servers for concurrent, independent processing, all while the original data set is still actively being accessed/updated by the primary application server. This is useful for what if scenarios, such as testing a new payroll application on your actual, but not live, data. To configure Snapshots properties, right-click the Snapshots option and choose Properties. Setting up for Snapshots You need a Snapshot Resource for the logical resource you are going to configure. If you do not have one, you create it through the wizard. For more information, see Creating a Snapshot Resource on page Right-click a SAN resource, incoming replica resource, or a Group and choose Snapshots > Enable. For multiple SAN resources, right-click the SAN resources object and choose Snapshots > Enable. The Enable Snapshots Wizard launches. 2. Determine how often Snapshots should be created. 173

182 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual If you are configuring Snapshots for an incoming replica resource, you cannot choose the Create an initial Snapshots on... policy. Instead, a Snapshots is created after each scheduled replication finishes. Depending upon the version of your system, the maximum number of Snapshots that can be maintained is 255. The maximum does not include the Snapshots images that are associated with SnapshotView resources. Once the maximum is reached, the earliest Snapshots are deleted depending upon priority. Low priority Snapshots are deleted first, followed by Medium, High, and lastly Critical. When a Snapshot is deleted, journal data is merged together with a previous Snapshot or a newer Snapshot, if no previous exist. Snapshot Notification works with the Snapshot Agents to initiate a snapshot request to a SAN client. When used, the system notifies the client to quiet activity on the disk before a snapshot is taken. Using snapshot notification guarantees that you get a consistent image of your data. This might take some time if the client is busy. You can speed up the process by skipping Snapshot Notification if you know that the client is updating data when a Snapshot is taken. Use the Trigger snapshot notification for every n scheduled Snapshots option to choose which Snapshots should use snapshot notification. 3. Confirm that all information is correct and click the Finish button. Checking Snapshots Status To see a list of Snapshots for this virtual drive and your Snapshots policies, click the Snapshot tab. Snapshots displayed in orange are pending, meaning there is unflushed data. Unflushed Snapshots cannot be chosen for rollback or SnapshotView. 174

183 Chapter 15: Snapshots The Quiescent column indicates whether a snapshot notification occurred when the Snapshot was created. When a device is assigned to a client, the initial value is set to No. A Yes in the Quiescent column indicates there is an available agent on the client to handle the snapshot notification, and the snapshot notification was successful. If a device is assigned to multiple clients, such as nodes of a cluster, the Quiescent column displays Yes only if the snapshot notification is successful on all clients; if there is a failure on one of the clients, the column displays No. However, in the case of a VSS cluster, the Quiescent column displays Yes with VSS when the entire VSS process has successfully completed on the active node and the snapshot has been created. If you are looking at this tab for a replica resource, the status is carried from the primary resource. For example, if the Snapshots created on the primary virtual device used snapshot notification, Quiescent sets to Yes for the replica. The SnapshotView Data column indicates whether SnapshotView data or a SnapshotView resource exists on the Snapshots. The Status column indicates the Snapshot state To update the information on this tab, right-click the virtual drive and choose Refresh. To see how much space Snapshots is using, click the Snapshots Resource tab. Adding Comments or Changing Priority of Existing Snapshots You can add a comment to an existing Snapshot to make it easy to identify later. For example, you might add a known good recovery point, such as an application checkpoint to identify a Snapshot for easy recovery. You can also change the priority of a Snapshot. Priority eases long term management of Snapshots by allowing you to designate importance, aiding in the preservation of critical point-in-time images. Priority affects how Snapshots are deleted once the maximum number of Snapshots to keep has been reached. Low priority Snapshots are deleted first, followed by Medium, High, and finally Critical. 1. Right-click the Snapshots SAN Resource you want to update and choose Snapshots > Update 2. Click in the Comment or Priority field to make or change entries. 3. Click the Update button. Manually Creating Snapshots 1. To create a Snapshots that is not scheduled, choose Snapshots > Create. 2. If desired, add a comment for the Snapshots that makes it easily identifiable later if you need to locate it. 3. Set the priority for this Snapshot. Once the maximum number of Snapshots to keep has been reached, the earliest Snapshots are deleted depending upon priority. Low priority Snapshots are deleted first, followed by Medium, High, and then Critical. 175

184 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 4. Indicate if you want to use Snapshot Notification for this Snapshot. Snapshot Notification works with the VTrak S3000 Snapshot Agents to initiate a snapshot request to a SAN client. When used, the system notifies the client to quiet activity on the disk before a snapshot is taken. Using snapshot notification guarantees that you get a consistent image of your data. This might take some time if the client is busy. You can speed up processing by skipping snapshot notification if you know that the client will not be updating data when this Snapshot is taken. Note Using this option overrides the Snapshot Notification setting in the snapshot policy. Copying Snapshots The Copy feature enables you to take a Snapshot image of a drive, for example, how your drive looked at 9:00 this morning, and copy the entire drive image to another virtual drive. The virtual drive can then be assigned to Clients for use and configured for any of the storage services. 1. Right-click the Snapshot SAN resource that you want to copy and choose Snapshots > Copy. Important Do not initiate a Snapshot Copy while replication is in progress. Doing so will result in the failure of both processes. 2. Choose the Snapshots image that you want to copy. 3. Choose how you want to create the target resource. Custom You choose which physical devices to use and lets you designate how much space to allocate from each. Express Automatically creates the target for you from available hard disk segments. You only have to choose the storage pool or physical device that should be used to create the copy. Select Existing You choose an existing resource. These restrictions apply: The target must be the same type as the source. The target must be the same size as the source. The target cannot have any Clients assigned or attached. All data on the target will be overwritten. Caution 4. Enter a name for the target resource. 5. Confirm that all information is correct and click the Finish button. 176

185 Chapter 15: Snapshots To see the current status of your Snapshot Copy, click the General tab of either virtual drive. You can also check the server s (VTrak appliance s) Event Log for status information. Recovering Data using SnapshotView SnapshotView enables you to mount a virtual drive as of a specific point-in-time, based on your existing Snapshots. Use SnapshotView if you need to restore individual files from a drive but you do not want to rollback the entire drive to a previous point in time. Simply use SnapshotView to mount the virtual drive and then copy the files you need back to your original virtual drive. SnapshotView also enables you to perform what if scenarios, such as testing a new payroll application on your actual, but not live, data. After mounting the virtual drive, it can be assigned to an application server for independent processing without affecting the original data set. A SnapshotView cannot be configured for any of the storage services. Why use SnapshotView instead of Copy? Because Copy creates a new virtual drive and requires disk space equal to the original disk. SnapshotView requires no disk space to mount. It is also quicker to create a SnapshotView than to copy data to a new virtual drive. 1. Highlight a SAN Resource and choose Snapshots > SnapshotView. Move the slider to choose any point in time. Or enter the date and time down to the millisecond and microsecond. Zoom in to see greater detail for the chosen time period. The graph is a relative reflection of the data changing between Snapshots within the available journal range. The vertical y axis represents data usage per Snapshot. The height of each mark represents the Used Size of each Snapshot. The horizontal x axis represents time. Each mark on the graph indicates a single Snapshot. You do not see Snapshots that have no data. Because the graph is a relative reflection of data and the differences in data usage can be very large the proportional height of each Snapshot might not be obvious. For example, if you have one Snapshot with a size of 500 MB followed by several much smaller Snapshots, the 500 MB Snapshot is much more visible. Similarly, if the maximum number of Snapshots has been reached and older Snapshots have been deleted to make way for newer ones, journal data is merged together with a previous Snapshot, or a newer Snapshot, if no previous Snapshots exist. Therefore, you could see one large Snapshot containing all of the merged data. Also, since the length of the x axis can reflect a range as small as one hour to 30 days, the location of an actual data point is approximate. Zooming in and using the Search button enables you to get a more accurate location of a particular data point. 2. To create a SnapshotView from a scheduled Snapshot, choose Create SnapshotView from Snapshots, highlight the correct Snapshot, and click the OK button. If this is a replica server (VTrak appliance), the timestamp of a Snapshot is the timestamp of the source, not the replica s local time. To see greater detail, click the Zoom In button. 177

186 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Snapshot period Five minute range within this Snapshot The I/Os that occurred during this five-minute time frame display. If you zoomed in and don t see what you are looking for, click the Scroll buttons. It moves forwards or backwards by five minutes within the period of this Snapshot. Click the Search button to locate data or a period with few or no I/Os. When you have the period of time you want: 1. Click OK to return to the main dialog box. 2. Then click OK to create a SnapshotView. Otherwise, zoom in further to see greater detail, such as milliseconds and microseconds. Then move the slider to find the moment just before the file was deleted. 178

187 Chapter 15: Snapshots It is best to pick a quiet time without I/Os to get the most stable version of the file. 3. After you find the correct point-in-time, click the OK button to return to the main dialog box. 4. Then click OK to create a SnapshotView. 5. Enter a name for the SnapshotView and click the OK button. 6. Assign the SnapshotView to a client. The client can now recover any files needed. Note Clients might be unable to access SnapshotViews during failover. Remapping a SnapshotView SnapshotViews allow you to mount a virtual drive as of a specific point-in-time, based on your existing Snapshots. If you are finished with a SnapshotView but need to create another for the same virtual device, you can remap the SnapshotView to another point-in-time. When you remap, a new SnapshotView is created. All of the client connections are retained. Important Promise recommends disabling the SnapshotView from the client before remapping it. On Windows systems, do it from the Device Manager. To remap a SnapshotView: 1. Right-click an existing SnapshotView and choose Remap. You must have at least one more Snapshot available. 2. Choose a Snapshot. 3. Enter a name for the new SnapshotView and click the Finish button. 179

188 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Deleting a SnapshotView Deleting a SnapshotView involves deleting the SAN resource. To delete a SnapshotView: 1. Right-click the SnapshotView and choose Delete. 2. Check the box to enable the Keep the SnapshotView data to be persistent when re-created with the same Snapshots option. By default, the original SnapshotView is deleted along with all changes made to it. However, you can preserve the changes you have made to the SnapshotView with this option. The option saves the SnapshotView data on the Snapshot, and enables you to restore the data when a SnapshotView is recreated with the same Snapshot. 3. In the field provided, type Yes and click the OK button. Rolling Back and Rolling Forward Rollback restores your drive to a specific point-in-time, based on your existing Snapshots or SnapshotViews. After rollback, your drive looks exactly like it did at that moment. After rolling a drive back, Snapshots made after that point-in-time are deleted. Group rollback enables you to rollback up to 32 disks to a Snapshot. To perform a group rollback, right-click the group and choose Rollback. Snapshots that are common to all devices in a group displays in the wizard. 1. Unassign the Clients from the virtual drive before rollback. For all clients except Windows, type cd /usr/local/vtrakclient/bin and./vtrakclient stop. 2. Right-click the virtual drive and choose Snapshots > Rollback. Important To avoid the need to reboot a Windows 2000 or 2003 client, unassign the SAN resource from the client now and reassign it just before re-attaching your client using the Management Console. 180

189 Chapter 15: Snapshots To enable preservation of all timestamps, check the Preserve all Snapshots with more recent timestamps box. Important Do not initiate a Snapshot rollback to a raw device while data is writing to the device. The device fails to open causing the rollback to fail. 3. Choose a specific point-in-time or choose the Snapshot you want to roll back. If you chose a SnapshotView in the previous step, you do not have to choose a point-in-time or a Snapshot. 4. Confirm that you want to continue. A Snapshots is taken automatically at the point of the rollback and a tag is added into the journal. The Snapshot has the description!!xx-- POST ROLLBACK --XX!! If you later need to create a SnapshotView, it will contain all data from the new Snapshot forward to the SnapshotView time. You will see the disk as it looked immediately after rollback, plus any data written to the disk after the rollback occurred, until the time of the SnapshotView. 5. When done, re-attach your Clients. Important If PerfectPath is running on a Windows client, reboot the machine after rollback. Changing Snapshots Policies To change your Snapshots schedule on single devices: 1. Right-click the virtual drive and choose Snapshots > Properties. 2. Make the appropriate changes and click OK. In addition, you can update Snapshots properties in batch mode. To change your Snapshots schedule in batch mode: 1. Right-click the SAN resources object and choose Properties. The Update Snapshots Properties screen displays. 2. Choose all of the resources you want to update and click the Next button. 3. Make the desired policy changes and click OK. Deleting SnapshotViews in Batch Mode To delete multiple SnapshotViews in a device: 1. Right-click the SAN device and choose Delete. 181

190 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 2. Click the Select All button, then click the Delete button. 3. Type yes to confirm and click the OK button. Deleting Snapshots The Delete option lets you delete one or more Snapshots images for a virtual drive. Depending upon which Snapshots you delete, this action might free up space in your Snapshot Resource. If you have multiple Snapshots and you delete the latest one, all of its data is merged back to previous Snapshots and no Snapshot Resource space is released. If you delete the first Snapshot, nothing is merged so you do free up Snapshot Resource space. Generally, you only free up Snapshot Resource space if a large percentage of disk changes were made after the deleted Snapshot image. To delete Snapshots: 1. Right-click the virtual drive and choose Snapshots > Delete. 2. Highlight one or more Snapshots and click the Delete button. 3. Type yes to confirm and click the OK button. Disabling Snapshots This action deletes all existing Snapshots. Caution To disable a Snapshot, choose Snapshots > Disable. For multiple SAN Resources, right-click the SAN resources object and choose Snapshots > Disable. Replication and Snapshots The timestamp of a Snapshot on a replica is identical to the timestamp of the source. You cannot manually create any Snapshots on the replica, even if you enable Snapshots on the replica. 182

191 Chapter 16: NIC Port Bonding This chapter covers the following topics: Enabling NIC Port Bonding (page 183) Removing NIC Port Bonding (page 184) Changing a Bonded IP Address (page 184) NIC Port Bonding enables you to use multiple network ports in parallel to: Increase the link speed beyond the limit of a single port Improve redundancy for higher availability A NIC port belongs to a Network Interface Card (NIC). Most NICs have just one port. But some NICs have multiple ports. Two or more NIC ports are required to create a bond group. The NIC port must be discovered, that is, the server (VTrak appliance) must be able to find and use the port. Ports are represented by eth0, eth1, eth2, and so on. You can choose to: Put all NIC ports into one group Divide the NIC ports into two groups Use a portion of the NIC ports in a group You can choose either of two options: Round-Robin or mode 0 The default and is best for an environment where all ports connect to a single switch. Round Robin mode transmits data in a sequential, rotating order, and is good for general purpose load balancing and fault tolerance. It uses standard switches and does not require more switch setup. Link Aggregation or mode 4 A more dedicated, tuned mode that requires IEEE 802.IX- capable switches. It is best for multi-switch environments. Enabling NIC Port Bonding Configuring port bonding via Web Setup is the preferred method. You can also configure port bonding using the Management Console. Single NIC Port Bonding To enable single NIC Port Bonding with two or more NIC ports: 1. Right-click the server (VTrak appliance) and choose System Maintenance > Bond IP. 2. Choose the Bond Interfaces into one group option. 3. Enter an IP Address and Netmask for the bonded network interface. eth0 and eth1 represent NICs in the server. 4. Click the OK button. In this example, bonding interface bond0 with slaves (ports) eth0 and eth1 is created. Multiple NIC Port Bonding To enable multiple NIC Port Bonding with four or more NIC ports: 1. Right-click the server (VTrak appliance) and choose System Maintenance > Bond IP. 2. Choose the Bond Interfaces into two groups option. 3. Enter an IP Address and Netmask for each bonded network interface. eth0, eth1, eth2, and eth3 represent Network Interface Cards (NICs) in the server. 4. Click the OK button. In this example: Bonding interface bond0 with slaves eth0 and eth1 is created. Bonding interface bond1 with slaves eth2 and eth3 is created. 183

192 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Figure 1. IP Bonding using for interfaces in one group (left) and multiple groups (right) Removing NIC Port Bonding To remove NIC Port Bonding: 1. Right-click the server (VTrak appliance) and choose System Maintenance. 2. In the IP Bonding dialog box, click the Yes button. Changing a Bonded IP Address To modify a bonded IP address of a server (VTrak appliance), you must: 1. Remove the existing bond. See Removing NIC Port Bonding above. 2. Create a new bond using the new IP address. See Enabling NIC Port Bonding on page

193 Chapter 17: Replication This chapter covers the following topics: Overview (page 185) How Replication Works (page 186) Replication Configuration (page 186) Creating Continuous Replication Resources (page 195) Checking Replication Status (page 196) Assigning Clients to the Replica Disk (page 199) Recreating an Original Replication Configuration (page 200) Using Snapshot to Recover Files from your Replica (page 201) Changing Replication Configuration Options (page 201) Suspending and Resuming the Replication Schedule (page 202) Reversing a Replication Configuration (page 202) Reversing a Replica Primary Not Available (page 203) Relocating a Replica (page 204) Removing a Replication Configuration (page 204) Expanding the Primary Disk (page 204) Replication with Other VTrak S3000 features (page 204) Overview Replication is the process by which a SAN Resource maintains a copy of itself either locally or at a remote site. The data is copied, distributed, and then synchronized to ensure consistency between the redundant resources. The SAN Resource being replicated is known as the primary disk. The changed data is transmitted from the primary to the replica disk so that they are synchronized. Under normal operation, clients do not have access to the replica disk. If a disaster occurs and the replica is needed, the administrator can promote the replica to become a SAN Resource so that clients can access it. Replica disks can be configured for VTrak S3000 storage services, including backup, mirroring, or Snapshot, which can be useful for viewing the contents of the disk or recovering files. Replication can be set to occur continuously or at set intervals (based on a schedule or watermark). For performance purposes and added protection, data can be compressed or encrypted during replication. Remote Replication Remote replication enables fast, data synchronization of storage volumes from one VTrak S3000 appliance to another over the IP network. With remote replication, the replica disk is located on a separate VTrak S3000 appliance, called the target server. 185

194 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Local Replication Local replication enables fast, data synchronization of storage volumes within one VTrak S3000 appliance. It can be used within metropolitan area Fibre Channel SANs, or can be used with IP-based Fibre Channel extenders. With local replication, the replica disk is connected to the VTrak S3000 appliance via a gateway using edge routers or protocol converters. Because there is only one VTrak S3000 appliance, the primary and target servers are the same server. How Replication Works Replication works by transmitting changed data from the primary disk to the replica disk so that the disks are synchronized. How frequently replication takes place depends on several factors. With standard, delta replication, a snapshot is taken of the primary disk at prescribed intervals based on the criteria you set, a schedule or watermark value, or both. Continuous Replication With Continuous Replication, data from the primary disk is continuously replicated to a secondary disk unless the system determines it is not practical or possible, such as when there is insufficient bandwidth. In these types of situations the system automatically switches to delta replication. After the next regularly-scheduled replication takes place, the system automatically switches back to continuous replication. For continuous replication to occur, a Continuous Replication Resource is used to stage the data being replicated from the primary disk. Similar to a cache, as soon as data comes into the Continuous Replication Resource, it is written to the replica disk. The Continuous Replication Resource is created during the replication configuration. There are several events that cause continuous replication to switch back to delta replication, including when: The Continuous Replication Resource is full due to insufficient bandwidth The VTrak S3000 appliance is restarted After failover occurs You perform the Replication > Scan option You add a resource to a group configured for continuous replication Continuous Replication Resource is offline The target server IP address is changed Replication Configuration Requirements The following are the requirements for setting up a replication configuration: You must have two VTrak appliances. You must have write access to both appliances. You must have enough space on the target appliance for the replica and for the Snapshot Resource. Synchronize both clocks so that the timestamp matches. 186

195 Chapter 17: Replication Setup In order to replicate to a disk with thin provisioning, the size of the SAN resource must be equal to or greater than 10 GB, the minimum permissible size of a thin disk. You can enable replication for a single SAN Resource or you can use the batch feature to enable replication for multiple SAN Resources. You need Snapshot Resources for the primary and replica disks. If you do not have them, you can create them through the wizard. 1. For a single SAN Resource, right-click the resource and choose Replication > Enable. For multiple SAN Resources, right-click the SAN Resources object and choose Replication > Enable. The Enable Replication for SAN resources wizard launches. Each primary disk can only have one replica disk. If you do not have a Snapshot Resource, the wizard helps you create one. 2. Choose the server (VTrak appliance) that contains the replica. For local replication, choose the Local Server. For remote replication, choose any server except the Local Server. If the server (VTrak appliance) you want does not appear, click the Add button. 3. Remote replication only. Confirm or enter the target server s IP address. 187

196 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 4. Check the box to use Continuous Mode. Continuous Mode After the replication wizard completes, it prompts you to create a Continuous Replication Resource for the primary disk. Delta Mode Replication to occur at set intervals based on a schedule or a watermark. Use Existing Snapshot Use the most current Snapshot on the primary server or create a Snapshot specifically for the replication. An existing Snapshot reduces the usage of your Snapshot Resource. But the data being replicated might not be current. For example, your replication is scheduled to start at 11:15 and your most recent Snapshot was created at 11:00. If you chose Use Existing Snapshot, the replication occurs with the 11:00 data, even if changes occurred between 11:00 and 11:15. You must coordinate your Snapshot schedule with your replication schedule. Even if you choose Use Existing Snapshot, a new Snapshot is created under the following conditions: The first time replication occurs. Replication occurs multiple times between the creation of Snapshots. 188

197 Chapter 17: Replication The most recent Snapshot was deleted, but older Snapshots exist. After a manual rescan. Preserve Replication Snapshot Creates a permanent Snapshot that is not deleted when replication has completed, whenever the Snapshot option is enabled. This is convenient way to keep the replication Snapshots without setting up a separate Snapshot schedule. 5. Configure how often, and under what circumstances, replication should occur. An initial replication for individual resources begins immediately after you set the replication policy. After that, replication occurs according to the policy. You must choose at least one policy but you can have many. You must specify a policy even if you are using continuous replication, so that if the system switches to delta replication, it can automatically switch back to continuous replication after the next regularly-scheduled replication takes place. Any number of continuous replication jobs can run concurrently. However, by default, 20 delta replication jobs can run, per server (VTrak appliance), at any given time. If an additional job is ready to run, the pending job waits until one of the current replication is finished. Important Contact Technical Support for information about changing this value but note that more replication jobs will increase the load and bandwidth usage of your server (VTrak appliance)s and network and may be limited by individual hardware specifications. Start replication when the amount of new data reaches If you enter a watermark value, when the value is reached, a snapshot is taken and replication begins. If more data than the watermark value is written to the disk after the snapshot, that data is not replicated until the next replication. If a replication triggered by a watermark fails, the replication re-starts based on the retry value you enter. If the system detects no write activity to the primary disk, no replication occurs. Future watermark-triggered replications do not start until after a successful replication occurs. If you are using continuous replication and have set a watermark value, make sure the value that can actually be reached. If not, snapshots are rarely taken. Continuous replication does not take snapshots. But you need a recent, valid snapshot to rollback the replica to an earlier Snapshot during promotion. If you are using HyperCache-W, replication is triggered when the watermark value of data is moved from the cache resource to the disk. Start initial replication on mm/dd/yyyy at hh:mm and then every n hours/minutes thereafter Indicate when replication begins and how often it repeats. 189

198 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual If a replication is already occurring when the next time interval is reached, the new replication request is ignored. 6. Specify if you want to use the Throughput Control option. Important if you are using the Snapshot Agent for Microsoft Exchange 5.5, the time between each replication should be longer than the time it takes to stop and then re-start the database. Click the Enable Throughput Control box to control the synchronization process and maintain optimal resource throughput. This option can be used for questionable networks. The replication is monitored every four minutes. If the replication takes longer than four minutes, the system slows down replication to 10 KB to avoid replication failure. The Set Throughput Control policy screen displays. This screen enables you to specify the interval at which the I/O activity is checked and the resume synchronization schedule. The default checks throughput activity every minute and only resumes when the I/O activity is 20 MB per second or less. By default, the system makes three (3) checking attempts before resuming synchronization. You can change the number or enter zero (0) to make an unlimited number of attempts. 7. After you set the throughput policy, click the Next button. 190

199 Chapter 17: Replication 8. Choose a replication protocol, TCP or RUDP. Note All new installations of VTrak S3000 default to TCP 9. Indicate which options you want to use for this device. Compression Provides enhanced throughput during replication by compressing the data stream. This action leverages machines with multiple processors by using more than one thread for processing data compression. By default, two (2) threads are used. You can set up to eight (8). Compression reduces the size of the transmission, thereby maximizing network bandwidth. Encryption Provides a layer of security during replication by securing data transmission over the network. Initial key distribution is accomplished using the authenticated Diffie-Hellman exchange protocol. Subsequent session keys are derived from the master shared secret. Enable DeltaScan Analyzes each replication block on-the-fly during replication and transmits only the changed sections on the block. This action is beneficial if the network transport speed is slow and the client makes small random updates to the disk. If the global DeltaScan option is turned on, it overrides the DeltaScan setting for an individual virtual device. When virtual devices are in a group configured for replication, group policy always overrides the individual device s policy. 10. Choose how you want to create the replica disk. Important Compression requires 64K of contiguous memory. If the memory in the VTrak appliance is very fragmented, it will fail to allocate 64K. When this happens, replication fails. 191

200 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Custom You choose which physical devices to use and lets you designate how much space to allocate from each. Express Automatically creates the replica for you from available hard disk segments. You only have to choose the storage pool or physical device that should be used to create the replica resource. Select Existing You choose an existing resource. These restrictions limit what you can select: The target must be the same type as the primary. The target must be the same size as the primary. The target can have Clients assigned to it. But the clients cannot be connected during the replication configuration. All data on the target is overwritten. Caution 192

201 Chapter 17: Replication If you choose Custom, you see the following windows: Indicate the type of replica disk you are creating. Choose the storage pool or device to use for the replica resource. You can only choose one disk at a time from this dialog box. After choosing the first disk, you can add more disks. You must add disks if the first disk lacks enough space for the replica. Indicate how much space to allocate from this disk. Click the Add More button to add another physical disk. You return to the physical device selection screen to choose another disk. 193

202 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 11. Enter a name for the replica disk. The name is not case sensitive 12. Confirm that all information is correct and then click the Finish button. Important Once you create your replication configuration, do not change the hostname of the source or primary server. If you change the hostname, you must recreate your configuration. Replication Begins If you have configured replication for an individual resource, the system begins synchronizing the disks immediately after the configuration is complete, if the disk is attached to a client and is receiving I/O activity. If you have configured replication for a group, synchronization waits until one of the replication policies, time or watermark, is triggered. Continuous Replication If you are using continuous replication, the wizard prompts you to create: A Continuous Replication Resource for the primary disk A Snapshot Resource for the replica disk If you are not using continuous replication, the wizard only asks you to create a Snapshot Resource on the replica. Because old data blocks are moved to the Snapshot Resource as new data is written to the replica, the Snapshot Resource should be large enough to handle the amount of changed data to be replicated. Since it is not always possible to know how much changed data will be replicated, it is a good idea for you to enable expansion on the target server s (VTrak appliance s) Snapshot Resource. You then need to decide what to do if your Snapshot Resource runs out of space (reaches the maximum allowable size or does not have expansion enabled). The default is to preserve all Snapshots. This option stops writing data to the source SAN Resource if there is no more space available or there is a disk failure in order to preserve all Snapshots. Protect Your Replica Resource For added protection, you can mirror or Snapshot an incoming replica resource by highlighting the replica resource and rightclicking on it. 194

203 Chapter 17: Replication Creating Continuous Replication Resources This action is needed only if you are using continuous replication. 1. Choose the storage pool or physical device for the Continuous Replication Resource. 2. Choose how you want to create this Continuous Replication Resource. Custom You choose which physical devices to use and designate how much space to allocate from each. Express You designate how much space to allocate. The wizard automatically creates the resource using an available device. 195

204 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Important A Continuous Replication Resource cannot be expanded. Be sure to allocate enough space for the resource. By default, the resource is the largest of: 256 MB 5% of your primary disk 5% of all members of this group Go for a large resource size when: The primary disk regularly experiences a large number of writes The connection to the target server (VTrak appliance) is slow If the Continuous Replication Resource becomes full, the system switches to Delta replication mode until the next scheduled replication. If you outgrow your resource, you must disable Continuous replication and then re-enable it. 3. Confirm that all information is correct, and click the Finish button. Note that on the Replication tab, the replication is set to Delta mode. Replication must occur once before it switches to Continuous mode. 4. Do one of the following actions: Wait for the first scheduled replication to occur Right-click your SAN Resource and choose Replication > Synchronize to force replication to occur. Checking Replication Status There are several ways to check replication status: On the primary disk, click the Replication tab for information about a specific resource. Under the Replication object, observe the Incoming and Outgoing objects for information about all replications to or from a specific server (VTrak appliance). Observe the Event Log. Read the Delta Replication Status Report. Replication Tab The following example shows Continuous replication on the Replication tab for a primary disk. 196

205 Chapter 17: Replication The following example shows Delta replication on the Replication tab for a primary disk. Time Data The Replication tab shows time based on the primary server s clock. Accumulated Delta Data The amount of changed data. The information is only accurate after a successful replication. Replication Status This field only appears when you connect to the target server. Last Successful Sync This field only appears when you connect to the target server. Average Throughput This field only appears when you connect to the target server. Transmitted Data Size The actual size of data transmitted, based on either: After compression With DeltaScan performed Delta Sent The amount of data sent or processed, based on the uncompressed size. If compression and DeltaScan are not enabled: The Transmitted Data Size is the same as Delta Sent The Current/Average Transmitted Data Throughput is the same as Instantaneous/Average Throughput. If compression or DeltaScan is enabled and the data can be compressed: The Transmitted Data Size is different than Delta Sent. The Current/Average Transmitted Data Throughput is the actual size of the compressed or Delta-scanned data sent over the network. If compression or DeltaScan is enabled and the data blocks have not changed and are not sent: The Transmitted Data Size is different than Delta Sent. The Current/Average Transmitted Data Throughput is the actual size of the compressed or Delta-scanned data sent over the network. Event Log Replication events are written to the primary server s (VTrak appliance s) Event Log. You can check there for status, operational information, and any errors. 197

206 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Replication Objects The Incoming and Outgoing objects under the Replication object display information about each server (VTrak appliance) that: Replicates to this server Receives replicated data from this server When the server icon is white, the partner server is connected or logged in. When the server icon is yellow, the partner server is not connected or not logged in. Delta Replication Status Report Run the Delta Replication Status Report from the Reports object. The report provides a centralized view for displaying real-time replication status for all drives enabled for replication. You can generate a report over any range of dates for: An individual drive Multiple drives Source server (VTrak appliance) Target server (VTrak appliance) The Delta Replication Status Report is useful for administrators managing multiple servers that either replicate data or are the recipients of replicated data. The report can display information about existing replication configurations only. Or it can include information about replication configurations that have been deleted or promoted. You must choose to view all replication activities in the database. Figure 1. A sample Delta Replication Status report: 198

207 Chapter 17: Replication Setting Global Replication Options You can set global replication options that affect system performance during replication. While the default settings should be optimal for most configurations, you can adjust the settings for special situations. To set global replication properties for a server (VTrak appliance): 1. Right-click the server and choose Properties. 2. Click the Performance tab. Default Protocol Choose the default protocol to use for replication jobs. Timeout replication after [n] seconds Timeout after inactivity. This must be the same on both the primary and target replication servers. Important This parameter can be affected by the RUDP timeout setting. Throttle The maximum amount of bandwidth used for replication. The throttle limits the amount of bandwidth a replication uses. This is useful when the WAN is shared among many applications and you do not want replication traffic to dominate the link. Throttle affects all resources using remote or local replication. Throttle does not affect manual replication scans, only the actual replication. Throttle does not affect continuous replication, which uses all available bandwidth. Leaving the Throttle field set to 0 (zero) means that the maximum available bandwidth is used. Valid inputs are 0 and 10 KB/s to 1,000,000 KB/s (1 GB/s). Enable DeltaScan DeltaScan analyzes each replication block on-the-fly during replication and transmits only the changed sections on the block. This is beneficial if the network transport speed is slow and the client makes small random updates to the disk. This global DeltaScan option overrides the DeltaScan setting for each individual virtual device. Testing Replication Parameters You can run a test to discover maximum bandwidth and latency for remote replication within your network. 1. Under Outgoing Replications, right-click a server (VTrak appliance) and choose Replication Parameters. 2. Click the Test button for information regarding the bandwidth and latency of your network. Assigning Clients to the Replica Disk You can assign Clients to the replica disk in preparation for promotion or reversal. Clients cannot connect to the replica disk, and the Client s operating system does not see the replica disk until after the promotion or reversal. After the replica disk is promoted or a reversal is performed, you can restart the SAN Client to see the new information and connect to the promoted disk. To assign Clients: 1. Under the Replication object, right-click an Incoming Replica resource and choose Assign. 2. Choose the Client to be assigned and set the appropriate access rights. If the Client you want to assign does not appear in the list, click the Add button. 3. Confirm all of the information and click the Finish button. Switching Clients to the Replica Disk when the Primary Disk Fails Because the replica disk is used for disaster recovery purposes, clients do not have access to the replica. If a disaster occurs and the replica is needed, the administrator can promote the replica to become the primary disk so that clients can access it. The Promote option changes the replica disk to a usable resource. Promotion breaks the replication configuration. Once a replica disk is promoted, it cannot revert back to a replica disk. 199

208 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual You can promote only valid replica disks. For example: If a problem occurs during the first and only replication, the replicated data is compromised and the replica disk cannot be promoted to a primary disk. If a problem occurs during a subsequent replication, the replica disk is recreated with the data from the Snapshot resource. The result is a replica of its last good state that can be promoted. In this context, a problem might be a transmission issue or failure of the replica disk. To promote a replica: 1. In the Console, under the Replication object, right-click an incoming replica resource and choose Replication > Promote. If the primary server (VTrak appliance) is not available, you are prompted to roll back the replica to the last good Snapshot, assuming Snapshot is enabled on the replica. At that point, the wizard discontinues the promotion. You must check the Event Log to be sure the rollback completes successfully. After you confirm a successful rollback, choose Replication > Promote to continue. 2. Confirm the promotion and click the OK button. 3. Assign the appropriate clients to this resource. 4. Rescan devices or restart the client to see the promoted resource. Recreating an Original Replication Configuration Due to a disaster, your original primary disk became unusable, so you promoted the replica disk to a primary disk. The newly prompted primary disk can service your clients. Next, you fixed, rebuilt, or replaced your original primary disk. To recreate your original replication configuration: Important You cannot promote a replica disk while a replication is in progress. If you are using continuous replication, you should not promote a replica disk while write activity is occurring on the replica. If you just need to recover a few files from the replica, you can use the Snapshot or SnapshotView options instead of promoting the replica. 1. From the current primary disk, run the Replication Setup wizard and create a configuration that replicates from the current resource to the original primary server (VTrak appliance). Make sure a successful replication has been performed to synchronize the data after the configuration is completed. If you choose the Scan option, you must wait for the scan to complete before running another scan or replication. 2. Assign the appropriate clients to the new replica resource. 3. Unassign all clients from the current primary disk. 4. Right-click the appropriate primary resource or replica resource and choose Replication > Reversal. The disks reverse roles. The former replica disk becomes the new primary disk. The former primary disk becomes the new replica disk. The existing replication configuration is maintained but clients are disconnected from the former primary disk. 200

209 Chapter 17: Replication Using Snapshot to Recover Files from your Replica While the main purpose of replication is for disaster recovery purposes, the Snapshot feature enables you to access individual files on your replica disk without promoting the replica disk. This action can be useful when you need to recover a file that was deleted from the primary disk. You create a SnapshotView of the replica, assign it to a client, and copy the file. This action can be useful for what if scenarios, such as testing a new application on your actual data, but the data is not live. In addition, using BackTrak Backup with Replication and Snapshot enables you to back up your replica at your disaster recovery site without affecting any application servers. For more information, see the Snapshot User Manuals and the BackTrak User Manual. Changing Replication Configuration Options You can change the following for your replication configuration: Static IP address of a remote target server (VTrak appliance) Policies that trigger replication (watermark, interval, time) Replication protocol Use of compression, encryption, or DeltaScan Replication mode To change the configuration: 1. Right-click the primary disk and choose Replication > Properties. The Replication Setup Options screen displays. 2. Click the appropriate tab to make the desired changes. Target Server Parameters tab Enables you to modify the host name or IP address of the Target server. Replication Policy tab Enables your modify the policies that trigger replication. Replication Protocol tab Enables your modify the replication protocol. Throughput Control tab Enables you to enable throughput control. Data Transmission Options tab Enables you to choose the following options: Compress Data Encrypt Data Enable DeltaScan Replication Transfer Mode and Snapshots tab Enables you to modify the Continuous mode and Snapshot options for the replication. 201

210 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Make the appropriate changes and click the OK button. Important If you are using continuous replication and you enable or disable encryption, the change takes effect after the next delta replication. If you are using continuous replication and you change the IP address of your target server, the replication switches to delta mode until the next regularly-scheduled replication takes place. Suspending and Resuming the Replication Schedule You can suspend future replications from automatically being triggered by your replication policies (watermark, interval, time) for an individual virtual device. Once suspended, all of the device s replication policies are put on hold, preventing any future policytriggered replication from starting. This does not stop a replication that is currently in progress and you can still manually start the replication process while the schedule is suspended. When replication is resumed, replication starts at the normally scheduled interval based on the device s replication policies. To suspend replication, right-click the primary disk and choose Replication > Suspend. To resume replication, right-click the primary disk and choose Replication > Resume. To stop a replication in progress, right-click the primary disk and choose Replication > Stop. To force-start an unscheduled replication, right-click the primary disk and choose Replication > Synchronize. Important If replication is already occurring, a second replication request will fail, To see the current settings, click the Replication tab and look at the Replication Schedule field for the primary disk. Setting Replication Synchronization Priority To set the synchronization priority for pending replications, choose Replication > Priority. This option enables you to prioritize among resources scheduled to start at the same time. Set priority for a single resource or a single group via the Replication submenu. Set priority for multiple resources or groups from the Context menu of the Replication Outgoing node. Reversing a Replication Configuration Reversal switches the roles of the replica disk and the primary disk. The original replica disk becomes the new primary disk. The original primary disk becomes the new replica disk. The existing replication configuration is reset to the default. After the reversal, clients are disconnected from the original primary disk. To perform a role reversal: 1. Right-click the appropriate primary resource or replica resource and choose Replication > Reversal. 202

211 Chapter 17: Replication 2. Enter the New Target Server host name or IP address to be used by the new primary server to connect to the new target server for replication. Important The primary and replica disks must be synchronized in order to reverse a replica. You can manually start the synchronization from the Console and re-attempt the reversal after the replication is completed. Continuous replication must be disabled before you can perform the reversal. If you are performing a role reversal on a group, ensure that the group has 40 or fewer resources. With more than 40 resources in a group, we recommend that multiple groups be configured to accomplish this task. Reversing a Replica Primary Not Available Replication can be reversed from the replica server (VTrak appliance) side even if the primary server (VTrak appliance) is offline or is not accessible. When you reverse replication without the primary server: The replica disk is promoted to primary disk. The replication configuration is removed. Later, when the original primary server becomes available, you must repair the replica in order to re-establish a replication configuration.the original replication policy is used or maintained after repair. Important If a primary disk is in a group but the group does not have replication enabled, remove the primary disk from the group. Then repair the replica disk. Forcing Role Reversal You can force a role reversal as long as there are no replication processes running. Use this option when: The primary server (VTrak appliance) is down and the replica is up. The primary server (VTrak appliance) is up but it is corrupted and the replica is not synchronized. To force a role reversal: 1. Suspend the replication schedule. Important If you are using Continuous Mode, right-click the disk, choose Replication > Properties. Under the Replication Setup Options, click the Replication Transfer Mode and Snapshot tab and uncheck Continuous Mode. 2. Right-click the primary or replica server (VTrak appliance) and choose Replication > Forceful Reversal. 3. Type YES to confirm the operation and click the OK button. When the forceful role reversal is done, you must Repair the promoted replica to establish a new connection between the new primary and replica server. The replication repair operation must be performed from the NEW primary server. Important If the SAN resource is assigned to a client in the original primary server (VTrak appliance), unassign the SAN resource. Then perform the repair on the new primary server. 4. Confirm the IP address and click OK. The current primary disk remains as the primary disk and begins replicating to the recovered server (VTrak appliance). After the repair operation is complete, replication synchronizes again either by schedule or manual trigger. A full synchronization is performed if the replication was not synchronized prior the forceful role reversal and the replication policy from the former primary server is used to update the new primary server. 203

212 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual To recreate your original replication configuration, perform another reversal so that your original primary disk becomes the primary disk again. Important The forceful role reversal operation can be performed even if data is not synchronized between the primary and replica server (VTrak appliance). The snapshot policy, Snapshot, and throttle control policy settings are not swapped after the repair operation for replication role reversal. Relocating a Replica The Relocate feature enables you to move replica storage from the original replica server (VTrak appliance) to a different replica server, while preserving the replication relationship with the primary server. Relocating reassigns ownership to the new server and continues replication according to the current policy. Once the replica storage is relocated to the new server, the replication schedule can be immediately resumed without the need to rescan the disks. Before you can relocate the replica, you must import the disk to the new VTrak S3000 appliance. After the disk has been imported, open the source server (VTrak appliance), right-click the virtual resource being replicated, and choose Relocate. Important You cannot relocate a replica that is part of a group. If you are using continuous replication, you must disable it before relocating a replica. Failure to do so keeps replication in delta mode, even after the next manual or scheduled replication occurs. You can re-enable continuous replication after relocating the replica. Removing a Replication Configuration This option enables you to remove the replication configuration on the primary and either delete or promote the replica disk on the target server (VTrak appliance) at the same time. To remove a replication configuration, right-click the primary disk and choose Replication > Disable. Expanding the Primary Disk The primary disk and the replica disk must be the same size. If you expand the primary disk, you enlarge the replica disk to the same size. Important Do not attempt to expand the primary disk during replication. If you do, the disk expands but the replication fails. Replication with Other VTrak S3000 features Replication and Snapshot The timestamp of a Snapshot on a replica is the timestamp of the source. Prior to VTrak S3000, the timestamp was the replica s local time. If you enable Snapshot on the replica side, you cannot create any Snapshots. Replication and Failover If replication is in progress and a failover occurs at the same time, the replication will fail. After failover, replication will start at the next normally scheduled interval. This is also true in reverse, if replication is in progress and a recovery occurs at the same time. 204

213 Chapter 17: Replication Replication and Mirroring When you promote the mirror of a replica resource, the replication configuration is maintained. Depending upon the replication schedule, when you promote the mirror of a replica resource, the mirrored copy may not be an identical image of the replication source. In addition, the mirrored copy may contain corrupt data or an incomplete image if the last replication was not successful or if replication is currently occurring. Therefore, it is best to make sure that the last replication was successful and that replication is not occurring when you promote the mirrored copy. Replication and Thin Provisioning A disk with thin provisioning enabled can be configured to replicate to: A normal SAN resource Another disk with thin provisioning enabled The normal SAN Resource can replicate to a disk with thin provisioning as long as the size of the SAN Resource is equal to or greater than 10 GB. 10 GB is the minimum size for a thin disk. 205

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215 Chapter 18: Near-line Mirroring This chapter covers the following topics: Near-line Mirroring Requirements (page 208) Near-line Mirroring Setup (page 208) Checking Near-line Mirroring Status (page 215) Near-line Recovery (page 215) Recovering Data from a Near-line Mirror (page 216) Recovering Data from a Near-line Replica (page 217) Recovering from a Near-line Replica Snapshots using Forceful Role Reversal (page 219) Swapping the Primary Disk with the Near-line Mirrored Copy (page 222) Manually Synchronize a Near-line Mirror (page 222) Rebuilding a Near-line Mirror (page 222) Expanding a Near-line Mirror (page 222) Suspending and Resuming Near-line Mirroring (page 224) Changing Mirroring Configuration Options (page 225) Removing a Near-line Mirror Configuration (page 225) Recovering From a Near-line Mirroring Hardware Failure (page 226) Replacing a Disk in an Active Near-line Mirror (page 226) Near-line mirroring enables production data to be synchronously mirrored to a protected disk that resides on a second VTrak appliance. You can enable near-line mirroring for a single SAN Resource or multiple resources. With near-line mirroring, the primary disk is the disk that is used to read/write data for a SAN Client and the mirrored copy is a copy of the primary. Each time data is written to the primary disk, the same data is simultaneously written to the mirror disk. Snapshot can be configured on the near-line server (VTrak appliance) to create recovery points. The near-line mirror can also be replicated for disaster recovery protection. If the primary disk fails, you can initiate recovery from the near-line server (VTrak appliance) and roll back to a valid point-in-time. 207

216 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Near-line Mirroring Requirements The following are the requirements for setting up a near-line mirroring configuration: The primary server (VTrak appliance) cannot be configured to replicate to the near-line server. At least one protocol (FC or iscsi) must be enabled on the near-line server. If you are using the FC protocol for your near-line mirror, zone the appropriate initiators on your primary server with the targets on your near-line server. For recovery purposes, zone the appropriate initiators on your near-line server with the targets on your primary server. Near-line Mirroring Setup You can enable near-line mirroring for a single SAN resource or multiple resources. To enable and set up near-line mirroring on one resources, follow the steps described below. To enable near-line mirroring for multiple resources. 1. Right-click the resource and choose Near-line Mirror > Add. The Welcome screen displays. 2. If you are enabling one disk, specify whether you want to enable near-line mirroring for the primary disk or just to prepare a near-line disk. When you create a near-line disk, the primary server performs a rescan to discover new devices. If you are configuring multiple near-line mirrors, the scans can become time consuming. Instead, you can choose to prepare the near-line disk now and then manually rescan physical resources and discover new resources on the primary server. Afterwards, you must re-run the wizard and choose the existing, prepared disk. If you are enabling near-line mirroring for multiple disks, the above screen will not display. 208

217 Chapter 18: Near-line Mirroring 3. Choose the storage pool or physical devices for the near-line mirror s virtual header information. 4. Choose the server (VTrak appliance) to contain the near-line mirror. 5. Add the primary server (VTrak appliance) as a client of the near-line server (VTrak appliance). You will go through several screens to add the client: Confirm or specify the IP address that the primary server uses to connect to the near-line server as a client. This IP address is used for iscsi. It is not used for Fibre Channel. Determine if you want to enable persistent reservation for the client, the primary server. This enables clustered clients to take advantage of Persistent Reserve/Release to control disk access between various cluster nodes. Choose the client s protocols. If you choose iscsi, you must indicate if this is a mobile client. FC protocol. Choose or add WWPN initiators for the client. Disable Volume Set Addressing (VSA). iscsi protocol. Choose the initiator that this client uses. If the initiator does not appear, you may need to rescan. You can also manually add it, if necessary. iscsi protocol. Add or choose users who can authenticate for this client. 209

218 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 6. Confirm the IP address of the primary server. Confirm or specify the IP address the near-line server will use to connect to the primary server when a Snapshot is created, if snapshot notification is used. If needed, you can specify a different IP address from what you used when you added the primary server as a client of the near-line server. 7. Check the box if you want to monitor the mirroring process. If you choose to monitor the mirroring process, the I/O performance is checked to decide if I/O to the mirror disk is lagging beyond an acceptable limit. If it is, mirroring is suspended so it does not affect the primary storage. Monitor mirroring process every n seconds Specifies how frequently the system should check the lag time (delay between I/O to the primary disk and the mirror). Checking more or less frequently will not impact system performance. On systems with very low I/O, a higher number may help get a more accurate representation. Maximum lag time for mirror I/O Specifies an acceptable lag time ( milliseconds) between I/Os to the primary disk and the mirror. 210

219 Chapter 18: Near-line Mirroring Suspend mirroring If the I/O to the mirror disk is lagging beyond the specified level of acceptance, mirroring will be suspended when the following conditions are met: When the failure threshold reaches n% Specifies what percentage of I/Os must pass the lag time test. For example, you set the percentage to 10% and the maximum lag time to 15 milliseconds. During the test period, 100 I/Os occurred and 20 of them took longer than 15 milliseconds to update the mirror disk. With a 20% failure rate, mirroring would be suspended. When the outstanding I/Os reaches n Specifies the minimum number of I/Os that can be outstanding. When the number of outstanding I/Os are above the specified number, mirroring is suspended. Important If a mirror becomes out of sync because of a disk failure or an I/O error. Rather than having too much lag time, the mirror is not suspended. Because the mirror is still active, re-synchronization will be attempted based on the global mirroring properties that are set for the server (VTrak appliance). 8. If mirroring is suspended, specify when re-synchronization should be attempted. Re-synchronization can be started based on two methods: Time, every n minutes or hours I/O activities, when I/O is less than n KB or MB. If you choose both methods, time is applied first. If you choose neither method, the mirror stays suspended until you manually synchronize it. If you choose one or both methods, specify how often the system should retry the re-synchronization if it fails to complete. When the system initiates re-synchronization, it does NOT check lag time and mirroring is NOT suspended if there is excessive lag time. If you manually resume mirroring, the system monitors the process during synchronization and check lag time. Depending on your monitoring policy, mirroring is suspended if lag time rises above the acceptable limit. 9. Indicate if you want to use the Throughput Control option. This option controls synchronization performance on the near-line mirror side. It is primarily meant for the initial synchronization or for rebuilding the mirror. This option can be used for questionable networks. The Check resource throughput after synchronization in progress for fields specify how long synchronization should run before the system pauses to check throughput. The default is four minutes. That means if the replication takes longer than four minutes, the system slows the replication to 10 KB per second to avoid replication failure. 211

220 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 10. If enabled, set the Throughput Control Policy to be used to monitor the synchronization process. Check resource throughput every Specifies how long to pause before checking whether to resume synchronization. The default is to check every minute. Resume Synchronization Re-synchronization can be started based on I/O activity, either when the number of I/Os are less than or equal to a specified number, or when I/Os per second is less than or equal to n MB or KB per second. The default is set to resume when the number of I/Os per second is less than or equal to 20 MB. 11. Choose how you want to create this near-line mirror resource. Custom You choose which physical devices and which segments to use and lets you designate how much space to allocate from each. Express You choose which physical devices to use and automatically creates the near-line resource from the available hard disk segments. Select existing You choose an existing virtual device that is the same size as: The primary resource A previously prepared near-line mirror resource that is not yet created This option only prepares a near-line disk if you checked the box in the first Near-line Mirror wizard dialog box. See page

221 Chapter 18: Near-line Mirroring 12. Enter a name for the near-line resource. 213

222 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 13. iscsi protocol. Choose the iscsi targets to be assigned. 14. Confirm that all information is correct and click the Finish button. Enabling Near-line Mirroring on Multiple Resources You can enable near-line mirroring on multiple SAN Resources. 1. Right-click on SAN Resources and choose Near-line Mirror > Add. The Enable Near-line Mirroring wizard launches. 2. Click the Next button on the Welcome screen. The list of available resources displays. 3. Choose the resources be Near-line Mirror resources or click the Select All button. 4. Choose the storage pool or physical devices for the near-line mirror s virtual header information. 5. Choose a server (VTrak appliance) to contain the near-line mirrors. 6. Continue to set up near-line mirroring as described in See Near-line Mirroring Setup on page

223 Chapter 18: Near-line Mirroring Near-line Disks are Prepared but not Created If you prepared one or more near-line disks and are ready to create near-line mirrors: 1. Manually rescan your physical resources. This action discovers new devices on the primary server (VTrak appliance). 2. Run the Near-line Mirror wizard again for each primary disk and choose the existing, prepared disk. This action creates a near-line mirror without re-scanning the primary server. Near-line Mirror is Created After creating your near-line mirror, enable Snapshot on the near-line server (VTrak appliance). Your data will have periodic snapshots and you can roll back your data when needed. For disaster recovery purposes, you can also enable replication for a near-line disk to replicate the data to another location. Checking Near-line Mirroring Status You can see the current status and properties of your mirroring configuration by checking the General tab for a mirrored resource. Current status and properties of mirroring configuration. Near-line Recovery The following actions are required before recovering data: If you are using the FC protocol, zone the appropriate initiators on your near-line server (VTrak appliance) with the targets on your primary server (VTrak appliance). You must unassign the primary disk from its clients. If enabled, disable mirroring for the near-line disk. If enabled, suspend replication for the near-line disk. All SAN resources must be online and accessible. If the near-line mirror is part of a group, the near-line mirror must leave the group prior to recovery. Snapshot must be enabled on the near-line resource and the near-line replica, if one exists. At least one Snapshot must be available to rollback to during recovery. 215

224 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Important If the near-line recovery fails due to a Snapshot rollback failure, device discovery failure, etc., you can retry the near-line recovery. On the Near-line Disk, choose Near-line Mirror Resources > Retry Recovery. Recovering Data from a Near-line Mirror Recovery is done in the console from the near-line resource. 1. Right-click the near-line resource and choose Near-line Mirror Resource >Start Recovery. You can also start recovery by choosing Snapshot > Rollback. 2. Add the near-line server (VTrak appliance) as a client of the primary server (VTrak appliance). You go through several screens to add the client: Confirm or specify the IP address the near-line server uses to connect to the primary server as a client. This IP address is used for iscsi, but not used for Fibre Channel. Determine whether you want to enable persistent reservation for the client (near-line server). This enables clustered clients to take advantage of Persistent Reserve/Release to control disk access between various cluster nodes. Choose the client s protocols. If you choose iscsi, indicate whether this is a mobile client. FC protocol. Choose or add WWPN initiators for the client. FC protocol. Specify whether you want to use Volume Set Addressing (VSA). VSA is used primarily for addressing virtual buses, targets, and LUNs. If your storage devices use VSA, you must enable it. iscsi protocol. Choose the initiator that this client uses. If the initiator does not appear, rescan. You can also manually add the initiator, if necessary. iscsi protocol. Add or choose users who can authenticate for this client. 3. Click the OK button. 216

225 Chapter 18: Near-line Mirroring 4. Choose the point-in-time to which you want to roll back. Rollback restores your drive to a specific point-in-time, based on an existing Snapshot. After rollback, your drive looks exactly like it did at that point in time. You can roll back to any Snapshot. When you click the OK button, the system rolls back the near-line mirror to the specified point-in-time and then synchronizes the data back to the primary server. When the process is completed, your screen looks similar to the following: 5. When the Mirror Synchronization Status shows the status as Synchronized, choose Near-line Mirror Resource > Resume Config to resume the configuration of the near-line mirror. This action re-sets the original near-line configuration so that the primary server can begin mirroring to the near-line mirror. 6. Re-assign your primary disk to its clients. Recovering Data from a Near-line Replica Another type of recovery is recovering from the Snapshot of the near-line replica disk. The following is required before recovering data from a near-line replica: All of the clients assigned to the primary disk must be removed. The near-line disk and the replica disk must be in sync as required for role reversal. If the Near-line Disk is already enabled with mirror, the mirror must be removed first. To perform a recovery from the near-line resource: 1. Right-click the near-line resource and choose Replication > Recovery > Prepare or choose Replication > Recovery > Start. 2. Click the OK button to update the configuration for recovery. 217

226 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 3. Click the OK button to perform a role reversal. The near-line disk becomes the replica disk. The primary disk is the mirror of the near-line disk. The Recovery from Near-line Replica Snapshot screen displays. 218

227 Chapter 18: Near-line Mirroring 4. Choose the Snapshot to rollback the near-line mirror to a specific point-in-time. Click the OK button. 5. After a successful rollback, right-click the near-line replica disk and choose Replication > Synchronize. This action synchronizes the rollback data from the near-line replica disk to the near-line primary disk. 6. Right-click the near-line replica disk and choose Replication > Recovery > Resume Config. This action performs a role reversal to switch the near-line replica disk back to the replication primary disk, and resumes the Mirroring configuration. The Resume Near-line Mirroring from Near-line Replica Recovery screen displays. 7. Click the OK button to switch the role of the near-line primary disk and the near-line replica disk, and to resume near-line mirroring. 8. Re-assign the primary disk to its clients. Recovering from a Near-line Replica Snapshots using Forceful Role Reversal Use recovery from a near-line replica Snapshot with forceful role reversal when the near-line server (VTrak appliance) is not available. To use this option, Snapshot must be enabled on both the near-line primary disk and near-line replica disk. To prepare for recovery: 1. Suspend replication on the near-line server 2. Unassign all of the clients from the primary disk on the primary server 3. Suspend near-line mirror on the primary disk to prevent mirror synchronization of the near-line disk. To perform the recovery: 1. Right-click the near-line replica disk and choose Replication > Reversal. The procedure fails because the server is not available. 219

228 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 2. Click the OK button. 3. At the login screen, click the Cancel button to exit. The Forceful Replication Role Reversal screen displays. 4. Type Yes in the field provided and click the OK button. 5. Click OK to switch the roles of the replica disk and primary disk. The replica disk is promoted to primary disk. 6. Right-click the newly reversed replica disk and choose Snapshot > Rollback. 7. Choose the Snapshot you are rolling back to and click the OK button. 8. After the near-line server is online, right-click the reversed near-line replica disk and choose Replication > Repair. 220

229 Chapter 18: Near-line Mirroring 9. Right-click the reversed near-line replica and choose Replication > Synchronize. 10. When the synchronization is finished, right-click the reversed near-line replica and choose Replication > Reversal. 11. In the Recovery from Near-line Snapshots dialog box, click the OK button. 12. Choose the latest Snapshot to roll back to. Rollback restores your drive to a specific point-in-time, based on an existing Snapshot. After rollback, your drive will look exactly like it did at that point-in-time. When you click the OK button, the system rolls back the near-line mirror to the specified point-in-time and then synchronizes the data back to the primary server. 13. When the Mirror Synchronization Status shows Synchronized, you can choose Near-line Mirror Resource > Resume Config to resume the configuration of the near-line mirror. This re-sets the original near-line configuration. The primary server begins mirroring to the near-line mirror. 221

230 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual When near-line mirror configuration has resumed, you can resume the Near-line Mirror, and Replication. 14. Re-assign your primary disk to its clients. Swapping the Primary Disk with the Near-line Mirrored Copy You must swap the primary disk with the near-line mirrored copy before you can: Perform maintenance on the primary disk Remove the primary disk Right-click the primary SAN resource and choose Near-line Mirror > Swap. Important The mirror swaps to the primary disk if the mirror is in sync and a set period of time has passed. This delay reduces the load on the disk from the near-line server (VTrak appliance). Swap time is based on the Global Replication option in the console. See Setting Global Replication Options on page 199. Manually Synchronize a Near-line Mirror This option re-synchronizes a mirror and after synchronizing, it restarts the mirroring process. This is useful if one of the mirrored disks has a minor failure, such as a power loss. To manually synchronize a near-line mirror: 1. Turn on the power, plug in the drive, or perform whatever corrective action is needed. 2. Right-click the primary resource and choose Near-line Mirror > Synchronize. During the synchronization, the system monitors the process and checks lag time. Depending upon your monitoring policy, mirroring is suspended if the lag time rises above the acceptable limit. Rebuilding a Near-line Mirror This option rebuilds a mirror from beginning to end and after synchronizing, starts the mirroring process. After rebuilding the mirror, swap the mirror so that the primary server (VTrak appliance) can service clients again. To rebuilding a near-line mirror, right-click a primary resource and choose Near-line Mirror > Rebuild. To see the current settings, go to the resource s General tab, and check the Mirror Synchronization Status field. Expanding a Near-line Mirror Use the Expand SAN Resource Wizard to expand the near-line mirror. Verify that the near-line server is running. If the near-line server (VTrak appliance) is down, you cannot expand either the primary disk nor the near-line mirror disk. If the primary server (VTrak appliance) is down, you can expand the near-line mirror. The primary disk is expanded in the next mirror expansion. You can expand the near-line mirror with or without the near-line replica server. If a near-line replica server exists, both the nearline mirror and the replica disk are expanded at the same time. To enlarge the primary disk, you must also enlarge the mirrored copy to the same size. The wizard leads you through expanding the near-line mirror disk first. To expand a virtualized disk: 1. Right-click the primary disk or the near-line mirror and choose Expand. The Expand SAN Resource Wizard screen displays. 2. Click the Next button to continue. 222

231 Chapter 18: Near-line Mirroring 3. Choose the physical storage to add to the SAN resource. 4. Choose an allocation method and specify the size to allocate Custom You choose which hard disk segments to add to the SAN resource. Express You specify the size of the expansion. The wizard uses the available hard disk segments. 223

232 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual The near-line mirror and the replica expands. 5. Confirm the expansion of the near-line mirror and the replica and click the Finish button. You automatically return to the beginning of the Expand SAN Resource Wizard to expand the primary server. Expanding a Service-Enabled Disk To expand the service-enabled disk, the near-line mirror expand size must be greater than or equal than the primary disk expand size. You must expand the storage size on the physical disk first. Then go to the console and rescan the physical disk. Once you have performed a rescan of the physical disk, follow the steps under Expanding a Near-line Mirror on page 222 to expand the disk. Suspending and Resuming Near-line Mirroring When you manually suspend a mirror, the system will not attempt to re-synchronize, even if you have a re-synchronization policy. You will have to resume the mirror in order to synchronize. 224

233 Chapter 18: Near-line Mirroring When you resume mirroring, the mirror is synchronized before mirroring is resumed. During the synchronization, the system monitors the process and checks lag time. Depending upon your monitoring policy, mirroring is suspended if the lag time is above the acceptable limit. To suspend mirroring, right-click the primary resource and choose Near-line Mirror > Suspend. To resume mirroring, right-click the primary resource and choose Near-line Mirror > Suspend or Near-line Mirror > Resume. To view the current status, right-click the primary resource, click the General tab, and look at the Mirror Synchronization Status field. Changing Mirroring Configuration Options Setting Global Mirroring Options Global mirroring options affect system performance during all types of mirroring, including near-line, synchronous, and asynchronous. The default settings should be optimal for most configurations. You can adjust the settings for special situations. To set global mirroring properties for a server (VTrak appliance): 1. Right-click the server and choose Properties. 2. Click the Performance tab. Use [n] outstanding commands of [n] KB - The number of commands processed at one time and the I/O size. The I/O size you set must be a multiple of the sector size. Synchronize Out-of-Sync Mirrors This option determines: How often the system checks and attempts to re-synchronize active out-of-sync mirrors How often the system retries synchronization, if it fails to complete Whether to include replica mirrors These settings are only used for active mirrors. If a mirror is suspended because the lag time exceeded the acceptable limit, that re-synchronization policy applies instead. The mirrored devices must be the same size. If you want to enlarge the primary disk, you must enlarge the mirrored copy to the same size. The Expand SAN Resource Wizard, leads you through expanding the near-line mirror disk first. See Expanding a Near-line Mirror on page 222. Changing Properties for a Primary Resource You can change the following near-line mirroring configuration for a primary resource: Policy for monitoring the mirroring process Conditions for re-synchronization Throughput control policies To change the configuration: 1. Right-click the primary resource and choose Near-line Mirror > Properties. 2. Make the appropriate changes and click the OK button. Changing Properties for a Near-Line Resource For a near-line mirroring resource, you can only change the IP address used by the near-line server (VTrak appliance) to connect to the primary server (VTrak appliance). To change the configuration: 1. Right-click the near-line resource and choose Near-line Mirror Resource > Properties. 2. Make the appropriate change and click the OK button. Removing a Near-line Mirror Configuration You can remove a near-line mirror configuration from the primary or near-line mirror resources. From the primary server (VTrak appliance), right-click the primary resource and choose Near-line Mirror > Remove. From the near-line server (VTrak appliance), right-click the near-line resource and choose Near-line Mirror > Remove. 225

234 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Recovering From a Near-line Mirroring Hardware Failure Replacing a Failed Disk If one of the mirrored disks has failed and requires replacement: 1. Right-click the resource and choose Near-line Mirror > Remove. The mirroring configuration is removed. 2. Physically replace the failed disk. 3. Re-run the Near-line Mirroring wizard to create a new mirroring configuration. See Near-line Mirroring Setup on page 208. Replacing Both Failed Disks If a disaster occurs at the site where the primary and near-line server (VTrak appliance) are housed, it is possible to recover both disks if you had replication configured for the near-line disk to a remote location. 1. Remove the mirroring configuration. 2. Replace the failed disk disks. 3. Perform a role reversal to replicate the data back to the near-line disk. Afterwards, you can recover the data from the near-line mirror back to the primary disk. Fixing a Minor Disk Failure If one of the mirrored disks has a minor failure, such as a power loss: 1. Turn on the power, plug in the drive, or other needed action. 2. Right-click the primary resource and choose Near-line Mirror > Synchronize. The disks are re-synchronized and mirroring restarts. Performing a Recovery on a Near-Line Server If the you are performing a near-line recovery and the near-line server (VTrak appliance) is set up as a failover pair: 1. Add the first and second nodes of the failover set to the primary. 2. Choose the proper initiators for recovery. 3. Assign both nodes back to the primary for recovery. Important When the server (VTrak appliance) does not show up in the list because: The machine is down The switch has not logged into the port You must know the complete WWPN of your recovery initiators. Manually enter the WWPN into the Recovery Wizard to avoid any adverse effects during the recovery process. Replacing a Disk in an Active Near-line Mirror To replace a disk that is part of an active near-line mirror storage: 1. Right-click the primary resource and choose Near-line Mirror > Swap. The disks reverse their roles. 2. Choose Near-line Mirror > Replace Primary Disk. 3. Replace the disk. 4. Swap the disks again to reverse their roles. Replacing a Failed Physical Disk without Rebooting To replace a failed physical disk without rebooting your VTrak appliance. 1. If you are not sure which physical disk to remove, execute the following command to cause the disk s LED to blink: 226

235 Chapter 18: Near-line Mirroring hdparm -t /dev/sd# Where # represents a,b,c,d, depending on the order of the disks. 2. Remove the SCSI device from the Linux OS. Linux 2.4 kernel, type the following command: echo "scsi remove-single-device A:C:S:L" > /proc/scsi/scsi A C S L stands for: Adapter, Channel, SCSI, and LUN. This can be found in the Console. Linux 2.6 kernel, type the following command: echo "1" > /sys/class/scsi_device/deviceid/device/delete Where DeviceID is obtained from ls /sys/class/scsi-device For example, echo "1" > /sys/class/scsi_device/1:0:0:0/device/delete 3. Add the device so Linux can recognize the drive. Type the following command: echo "scsi add-single-device A:C:S:L"> cat /proc/scsi/scsi. Where A C S L stands for: Adapter, Channel, SCSI, and LUN. 4. Rescan the adapter to which the device has been added. In the Console, right-click the AdaptecSCSI Adapter.x and choose Rescan. Where x is the adapter number the device is on. 227

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237 Chapter 19: Alerts This chapter covers the following topics: Configuration (page 229) Modifying Alerts Properties (page 235) Alerts is a unique Promise customer support utility that actively identifies and diagnoses potential system or component failures and automatically notifies system administrators via message. Using pre-configured scripts, called triggers, Alerts monitors a set of pre-defined, critical system components, such as SCSI drive errors, offline device, etc. With its open architecture, administrators can easily register new elements to be monitored by these scripts. The following events are monitored: Fail over to the partner Take over the partner Replication failure Mirrored primary device failure Mirror device failure Mirror swap Device I/O Error Stack Abandoned commands FC pending commands Busy FC Snapshot notification failure Storage logout iscsi client reset because of commands stuck in I/O Core Kernel error Kernel memory swap When an error is triggered, Alerts capture the appropriate information. The technical information needed to diagnose the reported problem is then sent to a system administrator. With Alerts, system administrators can take corrective measures within the shortest amount of time, ensuring optimum service uptime and IT efficiency. Configuration To configure Alerts: 1. In the Console, right-click the storage server (the VTrak appliance) and choose Options > Enable Alerts. 2. Enter general information for your Alerts configuration. SMTP Server Specify the mail server that Alerts should use to send out notification messages. SMTP Port Specify the mail server port that Alerts should use. SMTP Username/Password Specify the user account that will be used by Alerts to log into the mail server. User Account Specify the account to be used in the From field of messages sent by Alerts. Target Specify the address of the account that receives messages from Alerts. This is used in the To field of messages sent by Alerts. CC Specify any other accounts that receive messages from Alerts. Subject Specify the text to appear on the subject line. Interval Specify the time period between each activation of Alerts. Test The Test button enables you to test the configuration by sending a test message. 229

238 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 3. Enter the contact information for each Alerts message. 230

239 Chapter 19: Alerts 4. Set the triggers that will cause Alerts to send a message. Triggers are the scripts/programs that perform various types of error checking when Alerts activates. By default, Promise includes scripts/programs that check for low system memory and relevant new entries in the system log. Important If the system log is rotated prior to the Alerts checking interval contains triggers, but the new log does not have any triggers, then no message is sent. Only the current log is checked, not the previous log. Following are the some of the provided default scripts: cdpuncommiteddatachk.pl -t 90 This script checks for uncommitted data and generates an Alert if the percentage of uncommitted data is more than specified. By default, the trigger activates when the percentage of uncommitted data is 90%. chkcore.sh 10 (Core file check) This script checks to see if a new core file has been created by the operating system in the bin directory of CDP. If a core file is found, Alerts compresses it, deletes the original, and sends a report but does not send the compressed core file, which can be large. If there are more than 10 (variable) compressed core files under $ISHOME/bin directory, it keeps latest 10 compressed core files and deletes the oldest ones. defaultipchk.sh eth (NIC IP address check) This script checks that the IP address for the specified NIC matches what is specified here. If it does not, Alerts sends a report. You can add multiple defaultipcheck.sh triggers for different NICs. For example, eth1 could be used in another trigger. Be sure to specify the correct IP address for each NIC. diskusagechk.sh / 95 (Disk usage check) This script checks the disk space usage at the root of the file system. If the percentage is over the specified percentage (the default is 95), Alerts sends a report. You can add multiple diskusagechk.sh triggers for different mount points (for example, /home could be used in another trigger). vtrakstatus.sh (VTrak status check) This script calls vtrak status and checks if any module has stopped. If so, Alerts sends a report. fmchk.pl and smchk.pl These script checks if the fm and vtraksm modules are not responding. syslogchk.pl (System log check) This script looks at the system log for the last 20 MB of log messages. This is determined by information specified on the System Log Check and System Log Ignore dialogs. You see these dialogs later in this wizard. Once Alerts is enabled, you can modify the information by right-clicking your storage server (VTrak appliance) and choosing Alerts. If matches are found, Alerts sends a report. kfsnmem.sh 10 (memory management check) This script checks to see if the maximum number of memory pages has been set. If not, Alerts sends a report. If it is set, the script checks the available memory pages. If the percentage is lower than specified percentage (the default is 10), Alerts sends a report. memchk.sh 5 (Memory check) This script takes in a percentage as the parameter and checks whether the available system memory is below this percentage. If yes, Alerts sends a report. repmemchk.sh (Memory check) This script checks memory usage by continuos replication resources. If data is using more than 1 GB of kernel memory, it triggers an alert. 231

240 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual reposit_check.pl -t 200 -s 200 -n 48 This script checks the configuration repository s current configuration. If it is not updated, generates an alert. However, this trigger works only in case of failover pair. This trigger does not generate an alert for a server with quorum repository but not in failover mode. thindevchk.pl This script monitors the following: Total free physical storage space Threshold of available storage in GB for Thin disk to add storage The total number of segments on Thin disk The trigger can combine any of the above. It can also monitor a individual Thin disks or all Thin disks. tmkusagechk This script monitors Snapshot memory usage. It checks the values of 'Low Total Memory' and 'Total Memory reserved by IOCore'. When Snapshot memory usage goes over the lower of these two values, by the percentage defined in the trigger, an alert is generated. xfilechk.sh This script checks and notifies changes in executable files on the server. If an executable file is added, removed, renamed, or modified, it sends an alert. It does not monitor non-executable files. If you need to modify an existing script or create a new script/program, for more information, see Script/Program Trigger Information on page Choose the components to be included in the X-ray. Important By default the X-ray file is not sent with each notification message because of its size (minimum of 2 MB), However, the X-ray file is available should the system administrator require it. The following options are available to customize your X-ray. Regardless of which option you choose, the bash_history file is created containing a history of the commands typed. This is useful in obtaining the history of commands typed before an issue occurred. System Information When this option is selected, the X-ray creates a file called info which contains information about the entire system, including: host name, disk usage, operating system version, mounted file systems, kernel version, CPU, running processes, IOCore information, uptime, and memory. In addition, if an IPMI device is present in the server (VTrak appliance), the X-ray info file will also include the following files for IPMI: ipmisel IPMI system event log ipmisensor IPMI sensor information ipmifru IPMI built-in FRU information 232

241 Chapter 19: Alerts VTrak Configuration This information is retrieved from the /usr/local/vtrak/etc/<hostname> directory. All configuration information, such as vtrak.conf, vtrak.dat, and VTrakSNMP.conf, is collected, except for shared secret information. SCSI Devices SCSI device information included in the info file. VTrak Virtual Device Virtual device information included in the info file. Fibre Channel Fibre Channel information. Log File The Linux system message file, called messages, is located in the /var/log directory. All storage server messages, including status and error messages are stored in this file. Loaded Kernel Loaded kernel modules information is included in the info file. Network Configuration Network configuration information is included in the info file. Kernel Symbols This information is collected in the event it is needed for debugging purposes. Core File The /usr/local/vtrak path is searched for any core files that might have been generated to further help in debugging reported problems. Scan Physical Devices Physical devices are scanned and information about them is included. You can choose to scan existing devices or discover new devices. 6. Indicate the terms to be tracked in the system log by Alerts. The system log records important events or errors that occur in the system. This dialog enables you to rule out entries in the system log and to list the types of log entries generated, that you want Alerts to examine. Entries that do not match the those listed here are ignored, regardless of whether they are relevant. The trigger for monitoring the system log is syslogchk.pl. To inform the trigger of which specific log entries need to be captured, specify the general types of entries to be inspected by Alerts. On the next dialog box, enter terms to ignore. Entries that match these general types, are disregarded. The resulting subset contains all entries that Alerts to send out reports. Each line is a regular expression. The regular expression rules follow the pattern for the standard Linux utility, AWK. Important By default, the system log file is included in the X-ray file which is not sent with each notification message. 233

242 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 7. Indicate the categories of internal messages to EXCLUDE. By default, all categories are disabled except the syslog.ignore.customized. If a category is checked, it ignores any messages related to that category. Click the Customized System Log Ignore tab to add customized entries you want to ignore. Those entries are not sent out as reports. Each line is a regular expression. The regular expression rules follow the pattern for the standard Linux utility, AWK. 8. Choose the severity level of server (VTrak appliance) events for which you want to receive an alert. By default, the alert security level is set to None. Choose one of the following severity levels: Critical Checks only the critical severity level Error Checks the error and any severity level higher than error. Warning Checks the warning and any severity level higher than warning. Informational Checks all severity levels. 9. Confirm all information and click the OK button. 234

243 Chapter 19: Alerts Modifying Alerts Properties Once Alerts is enabled, you can modify the information by right-clicking on your storage server (VTrak appliance) and choosing Alerts. Click on the appropriate tab to update the desired information. General tab Displays server and message configuration and enables you to send a test message. Signature tab Enables you to edit the contact information that appears in each Alerts message. Trigger tab Enables you to set triggers that cause Alerts to send a message as well as set up an alternate. Attachment tab Enables you to select the information, if any, to send with the alert. You can send log files or X-Ray files. System Log Check tab Enables you to add, edit, or delete syntax from the log entries that need to be captured. You can also specify the general types of entries that need to be inspected by Alerts. System Log Ignore tab Enables you to choose system log entries to ignore. The chosen entries do NOT cause Alerts to send out reports. Script/Program Trigger Information Alerts uses script/program triggers to perform various types of error checking. By default, Promise includes several scripts and programs that check for low system memory and relevant new entries in the system log. Custom Destination You can specify: An address to override the default Target A text subject to override the default Subject. To set a custom destination: 1. Right-click your storage server (VTrak appliance) and choose Alerts > Trigger tab. 2. For an existing trigger, highlight the trigger and click Edit. 235

244 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual The alternate address along with the Subject is saved to the $ISHOME/etc/callhome/trigger.conf file when you have finished editing. New Script/Program The trigger can be a shell script or a program, such as Java or C. If you create a new script/program, you must add it to the $ISHOME/etc/callhome/trigger.conf file so that Alerts reads it. Return Codes Return codes determine what happens as a result of the script s/program s execution. The following return codes are valid: 0 No action is required and no message is sent. 1 Alerts sends a message without any attachments. 2 Alerts attaches all files in $ISHOME/etc and $ISHOME/log directories to the message. 3 Alerts sends the X-ray file as an attachment, including all files in $ISHOME/etc and $ISHOME/log. Because of its size (minimum of 2 MB), do not attach the X-ray file with each message. The $ISHOME/etc directory contains a configuration file including virtual device, physical device, HBA, database agent, and other information. The $ISHOME/log directory contains Alerts logs including events and the output of triggers. Output from Trigger For a trigger to send information in the message body, it redirects its output to the environment variable $vtrakclhmlog. Sample script Important If you specify an address, it overrides the return code. Therefore, no attachment is sent, regardless of the return code. The following is the content of the storage server (VTrak appliance) status check trigger, vtrakstatus.sh: #!/bin/sh RET=0 if [ -f /etc/.is.sh ] then. /etc/.is.sh else echo Installation is not complete. Environment profile is missing in /etc. echo exit 0 # don't want to report error here so have to exit with error code 0 fi $ISHOME/bin/vtrak status grep STOPPED >> $vtrakclhmlog if [ $? -eq 0 ] ; then RET=1 fi exit $RET 236

245 FC 1 4 FC Gb/s Gb/s Mgmt N 1 UPS TX RX TX RX TX RX TX RX FC 1 4 FC Gb/s Gb/s TX RX TX RX TX RX TX RX Mgmt N 1 UPS Chapter 20: Multipathing This chapter covers the following topics: Load Distribution (page 238) Path Management (page 238) The Multipathing option enables the storage server (VTrak appliance) to intelligently distribute I/O traffic across multiple Fibre Channel (FC) ports to maximize efficiency and enhance system performance. Multipathing is possible due to the existence of multiple HBAs in the storage server (VTrak appliance) or multiple storage controllers in the RAID subsystem that can access the same physical LUN. HBA Target LUN HBA Target LUN LUN 0 LUN LUN 0 LUN LUN 0 LUN LUN 0 LUN Storage Server (Appliance) HBA Storage Server (Appliance) HBA 1 Fibre Channel Switch Controller 0 Controller 1 LUN 0 LUN 1 Multipathing enables a single LUN to have multiple pathways to the storage server (VTrak appliance). 237

246 FC 1 4 FC Gb/s Gb/s Mgmt N 1 UPS TX RX TX RX TX RX TX RX FC 1 4 FC Gb/s Gb/s TX RX TX RX TX RX TX RX Mgmt N 1 UPS VTrak S3000 Server User Manual Load Distribution Automatic load distribution enables for two or more storage paths to be simultaneously used for read/write operations. This action enhances performance by automatically and equally dispersing data access across all active paths. HBA Target LUN HBA Target LUN LUN 0 LUN LUN 0 LUN LUN 0 LUN LUN 0 LUN Default Path Default Path Server / HBA 1 Fibre Channel Switch Controller 0 Controller 1 Default Path LUN 0 LUN 1 Default Path Path Management Each path has either a good or bad state. In most cases, when the deployment is an active/passive clustered pair of servers (VTrak appliances) acting as a gateway, there are two load balancing groups. Single load balancing group Once the path is determined to be defective, it is removed from the load balanced group. After being restored, the failed path is not used again unless one of the following events happen: There are no more good paths available You perform a manual rescan If either occurs, the path will be added back to the load balanced group. Two load balancing groups If there are two load balanced groups, one is active and the other is passive. For the physical device, then when there are no more good paths left in the active load balanced group, the device fails over to the passive load balancing group. A passive path cannot be used until the LUN is trespassed, meaning the passive path becomes active and the formally-active path becomes passive. 238

247 Chapter 20: Multipathing. To see multipathing information from the Management Console, go to Fibre Channel Devices, click a LUN, and click the Alias tab. For each device, you see the following: Current, Standby-Passive, or Load Balancing path Load Balancing (Active) vs. Standby-Passive path Connectivity status Preferred path 239

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249 Chapter 21: Troubleshooting This chapter covers the following topics: SCSI Adapters and Devices (page 241) Fibre Channel Target Mode and Storage (page 242) Logical Resources (page 242) Event Log (page 242) Network Connectivity (page 242) Client Connectivity (page 244) Storage Server (page 247) Failover (page 247) Replication (page 248) Snapshot (page 248) HyperCache-W (page 249) SNMP (page 249) Command Line Interface (page 249) Service Enabled Devices (page 249) Snapshot Resources (page 250) Block Devices (page 250) Virtual Device Expansion (page 250) This chapter guides you through some common problems and issues you might encounter when you set-up and run the VTrak S3000 storage network. SCSI Adapters and Devices VTrak relies on SCSI devices for storage. To discover the state of the SCSI adapters and devices locally attached to the Storage Serve, you must log into the Storage Server as the administrator. To verify the SCSI adapters and verify that the Storage Server is up, run the lsmod utility. You must either log into the console using the monitor and keyboard attached to DSA, or use SSH to log in as the root user. lsmod displays all loaded modules, including the SCSI device drivers. If your Storage Server is running, you should see: The VTrak kernel module The krdup modules The number of drives attached to each module If you do not see the appropriate driver for your SCSI adapter, it might have loaded improperly or it might have unloaded. Once you determine that the SCSI adapter and driver are properly installed, check whether the individual SCSI devices are accessible on the SCSI bus. Execute the following command on a server (VTrak appliance), cat /proc/scsi/scsi These commands display the SCSI devices attached to the Storage Server. You see something similar to the following: [0:0:0:0] disk Promise Logical Disk /dev/sda [0:0:1:0] disk Promise Logical Disk /dev/sdb [2:0:1:0] disk PSG ST318203FC!# B324 - [2:0:2:0] disk PSG ST318203FC!# B324 - [2:0:3:0] disk PSG ST318304FC!# B335 - If the operating system cannot see a device, it might: Not be installed properly Have been replaced while the Storage Server was running If the Server was not rebooted, Linux does not recognize the drive because Linux does not have plug-and-play capabilities. Replacing a Physical Disk 241

250 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual To cause Linux to recognize the device: 1. Remove the SCSI device from the Linux OS by executing the command, echo "scsi remove-single-device x x x x">cat /proc/scsi/scsi. Where x x x x stands for A C S L numbers: Adapter, Channel, SCSI, and LUN number 2. To add the device so that Linux recognizes it, execute the command, echo "scsi add-single-device x x x x">cat /proc/scsi/scsi. Where x x x x stands for A C S L numbers: Adapter, Channel, SCSI, and LUN number Fibre Channel Target Mode and Storage Persistent binding is automatically configured for all QLogic HBAs connected to storage device targets upon the discovery of the device. That is, when you rescan physical devices from the Console with the Discover New Devices option enabled. However, persistent binding does not SET until the HBA is reloaded. You can reload HBAs using either of these commands: vtrak start hba vtrak restart all The Console displays the Persistent Binding Tab for QLogic Fibre Channel HBAs, even if the HBAs did not load. You cannot enable Fibre Channel target mode on those HBAs. To resolve this situation, load the driver using either of these commands: vtrak start hba vtrak restart all Logical Resources Logical resource icons show the status of the logical resources: Icon Description If you see one of these icons, check through the tabs to determine the specific problem. Event Log This icon indicates a warning, such as: Virtual device offline (or has incomplete segments) Mirror is out of sync Mirror is suspended Snapshot rollback failed Replication failed One or more supporting resources is not accessible. Examples include HyperCache-W, HyperCache-R, and a Snapshot resource. This icon indicates an alert, such as: Replica in disaster recovery state, after forcing a replication reversal Cross-mirror on the virtual appliance needs repair Primary replica is no longer valid as a replica Invalid replica If the Event Log displays event messages as numbers rather than text, verify that there is at least 5 MB of free space on the file system to which the Console is installed. If not there is less than 5 MB, free up space are needed. Network Connectivity Storage Servers, Clients, and Consoles attach to one another through an Ethernet network. Their network connectivity must be properly configured for all of the components to work together. To test connectivity from one machine to the Storage Server, run the ping utility from a command line prompt. For example, if your Storage Server is named knox, execute: ping knox 242

251 Chapter 21: Troubleshooting If the Storage Server is running and attached to the network, you receive a response like this, Pinging knox [ ] with 32 bytes of data: Reply from : bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=255 Reply from : bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=255 Reply from : bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=255 Reply from : bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=255 Ping statistics for : Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss), Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms If the Server is not available, you get a response like this, Pinging knox [ ] with 32 bytes of data: Request timed out. Request timed out. Request timed out. Request timed out. Ping statistics for : Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss), Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms The timeout message means that knox is either: Not running Not properly attached to the network If you get a response like this, Unknown host knox The unknown message means that your machine cannot find the Storage Server knox because the Storage Server is: Not running Not properly attached to the network Not registered to the name service on your network Not referring to the proper name service Referring to a name service that is not running See your network s reference material for help with the name service. To verify that the VTrak ports are both up, on the Server, run the command, netstat a grep 1157 Ports and should both be listed. And port should be listening. Linux SAN Client When you run either of the commands,./ipstorclient start./ipstorclient restart And you see the following message, Creating VTrak Client Device [FAILED] Failed to connect to Storage Server 0, -1 The Linux client cannot locate the Storage Server on the network. To resolve the condition, restart the services on both the Storage Server and the Linux Client. Jumbo Frames Support 243

252 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual To determine if a machine supports jumbo frames, use the ping utility from a command line prompt to ping with the packet size. Assuming the Storage Server is named knox, execute the appropriate command, On Linux systems: ping -s 8000 knox On Windows systems: ping -l 8000 knox Client Connectivity Problems connecting Clients to their SAN Resources can occur due to several causes, including network configuration and Storage Server configuration. Click the General Info tab for the Client in the Console to see if the Client has been authenticated. If the Client is not authenticated, for a Client to access storage, you must: Establish a trusted relationship between the Client and Server Assign storage resources to the Client If you make Client configuration changes in the Console, restart the Client for the changes to take effect. If you observe that Clients do not achieve the maximum throughput when writing over gigabit Ethernet, turn on TCP window scaling on the Storage Server: /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_window_scaling 1 is on. 0 is off. On Windows systems: 1. Go to Start > Run and type regedit. 2. Find [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters]. 3. And add the following text, "Tcp1323Opts"=dword: "GlobalMaxTcpWindowSize"=dword:01d00000 "TcpWindowSize"=dword:01d00000 To see if the VTrak Client has connectivity to the Storage Server over the Ethernet network, see Network Connectivity on page 242. Windows Clients Problem: SAN client hangs when the storage containing its virtual disk goes offline. Solution: Change the default I/O error response sense key from medium error to unit not ready. Run the following command, echo "VTrak set-parameter default-io-error-sense-key 2 4 0" > /proc/vtrak/vtrak Windows Client Debug Information Caution Adjusting these parameters can affect system performance. Do not change any parameters unless directed by Promise Technical Support. The VTrak Client s activity and performance are reported in the Windows Event Viewer. You can: Filter the amount of detail reported Configure the tracer function 244

253 Chapter 21: Troubleshooting To filter events or to configure the tracer: 1. Choose Tools > Options and click the Log tab. 2. Choose a level in the Log Level field: Off No activity is recorded Errors only Only errors are recorded Brief Errors and warnings are recorded Detailed The default setting. Errors, warnings, and informational messages are recorded. Trace Debugging messages are written to the trace log. All errors, warnings and informational messages are recorded in the Event Viewer. 3. If you choose the Trace level, specify which portions of the VTrak client to trace. Trace information is logged to a file called FSNTrace.log located in the \Promise\VTrak\Logs directory. Note Regardless of which level you choose, some events are always written to the Event Viewer, including: driver not loaded, service failed to start, service started, and service stopped. iscsi Clients Client Loses File Shares Problem: After rebooting, the client loses its file shares. Solution: Reconnect to the file shares. To reconnect to the file shares, open a command prompt and type the following commands: net stop browser net stop server net start server net start browser You can create a batch file to do this. Client Disconnects Problem: Intermittent iscsi disconnections on the client or the client cannot see the disk after failover. Cause: The Microsoft iscsi initiator default retry period is 60 seconds, not long enough to manage temporary network disconnections, such as a failover or recovery. Solution: Change the retry period to 300 seconds. To change the Microsoft iscsi initiator retry setting: 1. Go to Start > Run and type regedit. 245

254 VTrak S3000 Server User Manual 2. Find this registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\system\CurrentControlSet\control\class\4D6E97B-xxxxxxxxx\<iscsi adapter interface>\parameters\ Where iscsi adapter interface corresponds to the adapter instance, such as 0000, 0001, etc. 3. Right-click Parameters and choose Export to create a backup of the parameter values. 4. Double-click MaxRequestHoldTime. 5. Choose Decimal and change the Value to Click the OK button. 7. Reboot Windows for the change to take effect. iscsi Initiator Fails to Connect Problem: The Microsoft iscsi initiator fails to connect to a target. Cause: The iscsi target if the target name is longer than 221 characters. Solution: Change the iscsi target to a name less than 221 characters. Fibre Channel Clients Initiator Times-out Problem: An initiator times out with this message: FStgt: SCSI command aborted. Cause: The initiator's Execution Throttle or Queue Depth is set too high, causing the initiator to time-out on some FC hosts. Solution: Set the Execution Throttle to maximum of 240 for all client initiators using the same targets. See your FC HBA documentation for more information. Linux SAN Client Client Configuration Error Problem: When viewing the Client configuration, you see this message: On command 12 data received 36 is not equal to data expected 256. Resolution: This is an informational message. You can ignore it. No corrective action is required. Client Device Failed Problem: When executing./vtrakclient start or./vtrakclient restart, you see this message: Creating VTrak Client Device [FAILED] Failed to connect to Storage Server 0, -1 Cause: The VTrak SAN Client cannot locate the Storage Server on the network. Resolution: Restart the services on the Storage Server and the Linux Client. Aborting due to Timeout Problem: You see this message continuously: SCSI: Aborting due to timeout: PID ######... Cause: You attempted to un-assign a device, such as a mounted partition, while a Linux client is accessing it. Resolution: Wait until the device is no longer accessed, then un-assign the device. 246

255 Chapter 21: Troubleshooting Storage Server Taking an X-ray of the Storage Server X-ray is a diagnostic tool used by your Technical Support team to help solve system problems. Each X-ray contains technical information about your storage server (VTrak appliance), such as server messages and a snapshot of your server's current configuration and environment. Caution Create an X-ray only when directed by Promise Technical Support. To create the X-ray file: 1. In the Console, right-click the storage server (VTrak appliance) and choose X-ray. 2. Check the options you want to include in the X-ray. Check the VTrak Messages Only box to include only messages from the System Event log. 3. Type a name for the X-ray file into the Save As field. 4. Click the OK button. Failover Incorrect Failover Status Problem: After failover, you connect to the newly-promoted primary server (VTrak appliance), but the failover status is incorrect. Or the heartbeat IP address shows status before the failover. Cause: The IP address is not part of the failover configuration. Solution: When you connect to the Server through the Console, use only the IP addresses set under failover configuration. Performing a Recovery on a Near-Line Server in Failed State Problem: You must perform a recovery on the near-line server (VTrak appliance), set up as a failover pair, and the failover pair is in a failed state. Solution: If the you are performing a near-line recovery and the near-line server (VTrak appliance) is set up as a failover pair, always add the first and second nodes of the failover set to the primary for recovery. Choose the proper initiators for recovery Assign both nodes back to the primary for recovery 247