Sun Storage Common Array Manager (CAM)
 
Sun Storage 6780 Array
 
Sun Storage 6580 Array
 
Sun Storage 2540-M2 Array
 
Sun Storage 2540 Array
 
Sun Storage 2510 Array
 
Sun Storage 6140 Array
 
Sun Storage 2530 Array
 
Sun Storage 2530-M2 Array
 
Sun Storage 6180 Array
 
Sun Storage 6540 Array
 
Sun Storage 6130 Array
 

PLA-Support>Sun Systems>DISK>Arrays>SN-DK: 6130
 

Applies to:

Goal

Choice of initiator Host Type affects the behavior of the array's reaction to I/O requests to volumes. The correct host type must be selected to ensure proper host communication to the array.  Failure to choose the correct host type can potentially result in, and not limited to, undesired I/O issues and unexpected multipathing software behavior.

Solution

This document assumes you understand the differences between explicit and implicit failover in the context of storage multipathing. For more information on implicit and explicit failover, please refer to <Document 1003652.1> Sun StorEdge[TM] Traffic Manager: Configuring and Defining Symmetric and Asymmetric Disk Storage Arrays for Multipath Management.

This document makes no claim to the supportability of a particular configuration or operating environment; it only attempts to describe typical software used in conjunction with the Host Type selection as a reference. Please refer to respective array multipath matrix in the "References" section of this document and/or release notes in the Oracle Technology Network > Oracle Documentation for firmware and host hardware/software requirements.

A. Identify available Host Types for a particular array.

Using Common Array Manager browser user interface (BUI):

1. select storage by clicking the corresponding name in Storage Systems screen or from navigation pane on the left
2. from navigation pane on the left, expand Physical Device, select Initiators
3. click the New... button to launch the Create New Initiator wizard dialog
4. the Host Type drop down list would show the available host type definitions for your array

From support data:

• The file NVSRAMdata.txt in the supportData bundle contains a listing of available Host Type.
• Note that not all host type has corresponding selection available in CAM (i.e. DSP or "Sun StorEdge" which has been obsoleted).

B. Select appropriate Host Type that matches the host configuration.

Summary:
This document is based on the NVSRAM bundled in CAM 6.6.0.  NVSRAM setting may change in future releases, just as it did before (for example,  NVSRAM corresponding to 07.84 is entered below).

Details:
Support data collected from an array would often show Host Type being a short name taken from the NVSRAM host type definition.

To map the short name to the longer name, from the NVSRAMdata.txt host type regions definition, locate REGION_HOST_TYPE_DEPENDENT_DATA, the first one corresponds to INDEX 0, the next is INDEX 1 and so on,  the short name is ascii encoded in the first few bytes of each region.  Once located the shortname and therefore, the INDEX, you can then look at the table at the beginning of NVSRAMdata.txt which shows the host type INDEX vs. the longer, more readable name.  Note that this long name is not necessarily the same as the one shown in CAM's drop down list.

Automatic Volume Transfer (AVT) is LSI's terminology for implicit failover, AVT Enabled means implicit failover. For more information on implicit failover, refer <Document 1003652.1>.  It is not enough to simply choose a host type with AVT enabled/disabled that matches the host's multipathing driver, there are other configurable behavior in each host type definition (reservation, lun reporting, etc).  The full details of host type region configurables can be found in LSI's NVSRAM document for specific firmware releases, this doc is not generally available beyond tier3 support and PDE.

A sample snippet of NVSRAMdata.txt taken from a 6780 with 7.60 firmware:

A sample snippet of NVSRAMdata.txt taken from a 6180 with 7.84 firmware:

References

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