Tape library and drives change to unknown state on Symantec 5220 appliance fiber channel bus after being successfully scanned

[ITOC]

I wanted to see if anyone else has experienced an issue with their robotic tape library and drives going to an unknown state on the fiber channel bus of their 5220 after being successfully scanned. In our particular case, the robotic library and drives under its control show correctly after going to the appliance menu and doing a FibreChannel > Reset, FibreChannel > Scan and FibreChannel > Show.

After doing a successful inventory on the robot in the NetBackup Administration Console after executing the above procedure, when attempting subsequent I/O to the library (such as a backup), the robot and devices will change to an unknown state on the fiber channel bus.

In terms of troubleshooting, both the appliance and the library have been restarted multiple times, the entire tape library has been replaced at this point, the HBA in the appliance has been replaced and fiber cables have been swapped multiple times. Local operations on the tape library and drives function with no problem (i.e., resetting drives, moving tapes, etc.) – but there still appears to be a communication problem on the bus. In this configuration, the tape drives (2) are cabled directly to the appliance’s HBA and are not connected to a fiber switch.

Has anyone else experienced this issue that would be able to provide some insight?

Thanks

[SYMAJ]

I have several 5220's and 5230's attached to fibre channel tape libraries - both direct and through switches - no issues seen in any case.

What library is it you are attaching ?

As you are attaching direct there are no zoning issues, so the appliance should see the drives / robotics following a scan.

Do you have any 'stale' devices showing ?  If so you can 'clean' these out with the manage/fibrechannel/clean command.

You say you have two tape drives, are these attached one each to two HBA ports on the appliance ?

A little more info may help us assist on this one.

Regards,

AJ.

[Mark_Solutions]

Which patch / version level is your appliance at?

Each patch also contains updated drivers for the HBAs which may help

As AJ says we also need to know what the library is so that it can be checked as a supported device

I have installed many appliances with a wide range of libraries and never experienced such an issue

[ITOC]

The appliance is a 5220 at version 2.5.1 and the tape library is a SpectraLogic t50e with 2 IBM LTO-5 HH drives. The 1st drive performs the functions on behalf of the robot. As mentioned in the original post, there is no intervening fiber switch and each of the 2 tape drives are directly connected to ports on the HBA in the appliance (which is already outfitted with two ports).

When doing a clear, scan, and show on the fiber bus on the appliance, the library and both drives show correctly. However, when attempting IO, the devices go to an unknown state.

[SYMAJ]

Library / drives look OK in terms of HCL support.  I have installed with 2.5.1. and 2.5.2 with no issues, the only one thing I came accross was when control path failover was enabled on a Quantum Scalar i40 (fibre channel).  Strange results so I disabled the failover and all was well.  I don't know if your library has the failover facility and if so is it enabled ?

AJ

[Mark_Solutions]

A couple of things that may affect things here (but can't guarantee anything):

1. By default it emulates a Spektra Python .. Phythod devices are what Fibre Transport uses so maybe it causes some confusion and selecting an ADIC may help

2. The library may have MLM checking enabled - so the library can keep checking / mounting tapes on its own which NetBackup may see as a drive not being available - possibly worth turning off if you have it enabled

If you load a set of tapes with MLM using a Full Scan then once you run an inventory to load tapes the library takes control of itself for a while while it mounts and reads every tape to make sure it is OK - NetBackup would not undertsand this and would probably not be able to do anything with the library for a while

Hope this helps

[symantec040]

@ITOC,

I have seen a recent issue on similar notes!

Try this,

tpext -loademm

Then proceed to check the latest device_mappings.txt

Let us know how it works!

[v9naga]

Hello,

Is it possible to check the status of Qlogic drivers ?

Reference :- http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH191281

Regards,

Nagesh

[symantec040 · Accepted solution]

There has been a EEB released for 2.5.1/2.5.2 for upgrade of the Qlogic Drivers.