[Info-vax] SmartArray 5300A question

[Rich Jordan]

On Aug 13, 12:51 pm, Carl Friedberg <frida.fr... at gmail.com> wrote:
> Rich,
>
> FWIW, the ACU-XE utility is no longer supported; you use MSA$UTIL instead. I
> don't know if that runs on VMS V7.3-2.
>
> I have no experience with these shelves except with one SA5302 connected to
> a single shelf (two SCSI cables, one for the left, one for the right). I
> have found (using the now de-supported ACU-XE) that dividing up the gross
> storage into RAID-1 or RAID-5 pieces is straight forward, although you have
> to start at the low end and work your way up. I don't think you can take an
> existing RAID-1 set, for instance, and expand it on the fly (but it's been a
> while since I have tried).
>
> I am not sure what pieces are stored on the controller, but if I had to
> guess, I would guess "everything".  I think the shelves are dumb.
>
> My 2 cents.
>
> Carl Friedberg
>
> On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 7:13 PM, Rich Jordan <jor... at ccs4vms.com> wrote:
> > We've got a site looking to add some hardware backup to an existing
> > Alpha setup due to some recent downtime when their 10 year old system
> > disk failed with no warning; they're not willing to go to Itanium or
> > get cluster/shadow licenses, just hardware to backstop their aging
> > system until a probable eventual transition to 'something newer' (I
> > know...).
>
> > DS10 600MHz, internal storage, VMS V7.3-2, somewhat down-rev on ECOs;
> > we can get them up to current ECOs, but not upgrade to V8.3 or newer
> > at this point.
>
> > What they want is to replace internal with external storage (except
> > maybe the tape drive), and purchase a second DS10 with identical
> > hardware specs to sit 'on the shelf'.  If storage fails, its replaced
> > (with spare disks).  If a DS10 or internal component failure occurs,
> > they shut down, pull the second DS10 from storage, plug it up and go.
>
> > We'd prefer to get storage redundancy with that external storage,
> > which with the unavailability of shadowing means a hardware RAID
> > controller like the Smartarray series.  I've used one before but it
> > has been many years and I'm just starting to regather the docs.  I've
> > already been told 'no' to considering fiberchannel and an MSA setup.
>
> > If we get two Alphas with Smartarray controllers and a Compaq
> > universal shelf, and set up the drive config we want (which will be
> > two spindles presented to VMS, at the very least two 2-drive
> > mirrorsets, at most that plus a couple of hot spare disks) on one
> > alpha, can that shelf be plugged into the second alpha (first alpha
> > down/disconnected) and just 'boot and go'?  Is the configuration
> > information all stored on the attached disks?  Or does the controller
> > itself retain information?
>
> > Note that this is not concurrent access; only one alpha would be
> > connected to the shelf at a time.
>
> > The fun part in testing will be the lack of 'identical' test systems;
> > we'll have the backup DS10 and a DS10L  (joy).  But I suppose if it
> > works with them, it will work with the real DS10s.
>
> > I'm not a fan of ACU-XE and the associated software; it caused us tons
> > of grief in 2006 when we last used it, but the conditions here are
> > unique and kind of tight.
>
> > Thanks
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Info-... at rbnsn.com
> >http://rbnsn.com/mailman/listinfo/info-vax_rbnsn.com

Carl,
     what I wondered is if the controller stored all configuration
data on the drives, and if so, if the config would work if you swapped
controllers (and system) out from under it.  I will be digging up the
docs to see what is listed; controller replacement in case of failure
should be covered, and that would be the equivalent of swapping
systems (I think).  The shelves are dumb; they only determine
signalling and if the shelf is single or split bus, I believe.

We had 'issues' with SmartArray before because the 'Orca' ROM based
config utility was too primitive and could not build the config we
needed.  So we installed VMS and ACU-XE and built the config, but when
we moved VMS to the new 'system disk' spindle, ACU-XE would never run
again.

We didn't find that out in time to do a complete VMS rebuild from
scratch (after completely rebuilding their entire environment, which
was very complex) and an extended service call afterwards, including
complete removal and reinstallation of the Management Agents and ACU-
XE was unable to correct the problem.   I'd swear it was like there
was a lost 'registry' entry that told ACU-XE to never run again.  I'm
really not happy about considering this option.

I'll find out about MSA$UTIL.  The site is no longer under software
support so 7.3-2 is as far as they go.  I've got another 7.3-2 system
online I can review.  However I'm pretty sure that doing the two-drive
mirrors with hot spare was within the limited  capabilities of the
SmartArray ORCA so we may not even need that much.