SUMMARY: Sunfire (V480/V880) and older disk arrays (A3x00)

From: Moehlman, Mike <mmoehlman_at_txi.com>
Date: Mon Feb 03 2003 - 11:38:40 EST
Got 2 responses (included below) from Tony Walsh and Al Hopper.  Thanks.

While there are no guarantees, both felt like it should work.

The basic assumptions showed to be the same.

If we get the funding, I will follow up with anyone who is interested in the
outcome (or the list if the level of interest is big enough).



------------------------------------------------------
From: Tony Walsh [mailto:Tony.Walsh@Sun.COM]
Sent: Friday, January 31, 2003 7:38 AM
To: Moehlman, Mike
Subject: Re: Sunfire (V480/V880) and older disk arrays (A3x00)


Mike

There should be no problems running the A3x00 hardware on any of the Vx80
platforms. I have attached several A1000 arrays to these machines with no
issues on the arrays at all and they use the same s/w drivers and physical
controller hardware as the A3x00 arrays, so I don't see any problems arising
for you. If you are referring to InfoDoc 43483 when you say it looks like
"an unsupported configuration", then my opinion is that is only if you try
to use the A3x00 as a boot target for the OS which I would NOT recommend in
any fashion even if you could do it. It's problematic enough on an A1000
without trying it out on a larger array. (Remember this is my opinion and as I
have not attached an A3x00 to a Vx80 I can not guarantee a favourable
result).

The provisos are as follows:-

- Check carefully that your arrays are in perfect health BEFORE you do
anything.
This includes physically checking for amber LEDs and dead drives and anything
that could compound a problem when you change software and hardware around.
This
should also involve running the 'healthck -a' command, checking the battery
age
and any other checks in the gui and/or command line. Repair any faults bofore
proceeding.

- Have the latest version of RM6.22.1 patched up to the latest level with
patch
112126-06 (or higher) on the arrays before you even attempt to attach them to
the Vx80 platfoms.

- You must upgrade the firmware levels of the arrays from patch 112126 and you
need to make sure the NVSRAM firmware gets loaded. I don't have the names of
the files in front of me for the moment so check out the contents of the
/usr/lib/osa/fw directory for data type files that do NOT end with .apd,
.bwd,
or .fcd. There should be 3 files with suffixes like .DL that are the NVSRAM
load files for each of the A1000, A3000, and A3500 controllers. If you run
the
'strings' command against each of these files, you will see a constant
describing each controller type for each of these arrays. Make sure you choose
the appropriate one for either of you arrays and load it in the same fashion
as
the array firmware. (It's probably easier to use the RM6 gui for this
process).

- Before you attach the arrays to the new platforms, make sure you have a
file
named /kernel/drv/glm.conf containing the following lines of code. This is
especially important if you have more than 8 LUNs on either or both of your
arrays
as the PCI Dual Diff SCSI card for the newer PCI bus machines uses a new
driver
called "glm" that is not too clever about support for more than 8 LUNs
without
this config file.

# glm.conf for Solaris 7 or Solaris 8
#
device-type-scsi-options-list =
	"Symbios StorEDGE A1000", "lsi-scsi-options",
	"Symbios StorEDGE A3000", "lsi-scsi-options",
	"SYMBIOS RSM Array 2000", "lsi-scsi-options";
lsi-scsi-options = 0x407f8;


It's getting a bit late here now so I must go. I've probably left some thing
out so don't hesitate to ask if you want more info.

Regards Tony Walsh

------------------------------------------------------
From: Al Hopper [mailto:al@logical-approach.com]
Sent: Friday, January 31, 2003 6:33 AM
To: Moehlman, Mike
Subject: Re: Sunfire (V480/V880) and older disk arrays (A3x00)

Have not tried this combination - but think about it for a Second.  Unless
the SCSI specification changed while we were sleeping... of course it'll
work!

Sun, from a business perspective, can't support every
permutation/combination of it's large product line.

Regards,

Al Hopper  Logical Approach Inc, Plano, TX.  al@logical-approach.com
           Voice: 972.379.2133 Fax: 972.379.2134

-----Original Message-----
From: Moehlman, Mike
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 3:30 PM
To: sunmanagers@sunmanagers.org
Subject: Sunfire (V480/V880) and older disk arrays (A3x00)


We are looking to "justify" upgrading some older Exx00 equipment.
Unfortunately, I don't think we can "justify" upgrading the disk array's at
this time.

The Sun documentation looks like this mix would be an unsupported
configuration.  Since the V480/V880 first shipped after the A3000/A3500 scsi
arrays were EOL'ed, this combination would not have been tested.  Has anyone
tried this combination?

We are currently running Solaris 8.
E4000 scsi attached A3000
E4000 scsi attached A3500

Any pointers or horror stories appreciated.
I will summarize.

Mike
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Received on Mon Feb 3 11:43:05 2003

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