Bert Zefat's Tech Blog

Today I had to add 2 P4330 nodes to an already existing P4300G2 management group.

Both P4300G2 systems and P4330 systems where on FW level 11.5.
When adding them to the management group an error occurred:

Storage system did not join the management group <GROUPNAME>.
Failed to sync newly added system. Remove the newly added system and try to add it again.

Als the system gave me following error:
“Storage System Status Missing”

Searching the internet I got to a page that indicated that there could be a subnet mask mismatch.
Checking this I came to the conclusion that all was OK. So the “SAN”switches, subnet mask, VLANning.
I made a call with HP.

Seems that some P4x30 systems with FW level 11..5 loaded from the factory have a BUG in the system that gives this result.

So please make sure, if you have this error, you do a Re-Image of the system (keep license key at hand) and re-do the settings you made earlier.
But this will solve your error.

Have Fun!

Tags: P4000, Storageworks by Bert Zefat
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Looking for the best practice regarding the amount of managers that should be running in a Single Site config. I saw that this was not that easy to find (as HP is aiming on Multi-Site Clusters).

For a single site next does count.

2 Nodes, 1 FOM, 3 managers
3 Nodes, 0 FOM, 3 managers
4 Nodes, 1 FOM, 3 or 5 managers (5 preferred)

Just make sure you have an odd manager count, so 1 node can fail ad you still will have 2 managers running.
This could mean that you could run without a FOM in a 4 Node SS Cluster. (3 managers running on 3 Nodes, but nothing may go wrong when 1 node already has failed.)

Tags: P4000, Storageworks by Bert Zefat
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HP Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) family with VMware vSphere 4.0, 4.1 and 5.0 Best practices
[Download]

Running VMware vSphere 4 on HP LeftHand P4000 SAN Solutions
[Download]

Best Practices for deploying VMware and vSphere 4 with VMware High Availability and
Fault Tolerance on HP P4500 Multi-Site SAN cluster
[Download]

HP P4000 LeftHand Solutions with VMware vSphere Best Practices (incl. vSphere 5)
[Download]

3PAR Utility Storage with VMware vSphere
[Download]

HP P2000 Software  Plug-in for VMware VAAI
[Download]

HP 3PAR Storage and VMware vSphere 5 best practices
[Download]

Tags: 3Par, ESX, EVA, P2000, P4000, Storageworks, VMware, vSphere by Bert Zefat
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Alle LUN’s standaard op Round-Robin zetten:

esxcli storage nmp satp set --default-psp VMW_PSP_RR --satp VMW_SATP_ALUA

Op alle LUN’s welke op Round-Robin staan de IOP’s op 1 zetten:

for i in `esxcli storage nmp device list | grep naa.600` ; 
do esxcli storage nmp psp roundrobin deviceconfig set -t iops -I 1 -d $i; done

Tags: ESX, EVA, P4000, Storageworks, VMware, vSphere by Bert Zefat
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Just thinking on how to make a “Poor man’s SAN” I came across this this idear:

Take 2 servers with enough disk space available and the ability to expand when needed. Install on both systems ESXi vSphere. With this installed, create on your ESX hosts VM’s with the VSA you can buy from HP.
The VSA is the same software that is running on the P4000 from HP, but now running inside your vSphere environment. The licenses go up to 10TB.
Doing so on both ESX hosts you can setup you SAN/iQ management environment and also your (first) cluster.

Now you have created your own iSCSI “P4000” like SAN. You can now connect to it from your production ESX vSphere environment.

One thing. Support from HP is NOT included.
(drawing will follow)

Tags: P4000, vSphere by Bert Zefat
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SAN/iQ vor P4000 has now support fot VMware VAAI vStorage offloads — Full copy, Block Zeroing, and Hardware Assisted Locking for faster VM deployment and less load on ESX server.

Meaning more VM’s can be run on the same environment. Till SAN/iQ 8.1 is was recommended to a total of 16 VM’s, now up t 50 VM’s should be supported. I have not been able to test this theorie, but this is stated by HP at this moment.

To upgrade to SAN/iQ 9.0 your system should run SAN/iQ 8.1.

Tags: P4000, VMware, vSphere by Bert Zefat
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