Does NBU 5230 Appliance support ALUA?

[Nos205]

Hello,

I have come across a setup where the 5230 is connecting to NetApp LUNs directly for backups. I discovered that the appliance is connected to both NetApp controllers and is mapped to LUNs on both sides. This sometimes causes the appliance to use a non-optimized path to connect to a LUN. I can see traffic going down the partner path.

Looking at the initiator groups setup on the NetApp, it does not have ALUA enabled. Does the 5230 support ALUA?

[Nicolai · Accepted solution]

Depending on Appliance version, OS can either be SUSE og Red Hat Linux. Red Hat uses dm multipath (don't know for SUSE) for mangeing multiple paths to a LUN.

See:

https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/5/html/DM_Multipath/multipath...

https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/DM_Multipath/index.htm...

Netapp should have no problem in supporting DM multipath, found this tech note:

https://library.netapp.com/ecmdocs/ECMP1654943/html/GUID-34FA2578-0A83-4ED3-B4B3-8401703D65A6.html

[Nos205]

Thank you Nicolai.

The information you have provided answers my question.

[Marianne]

Don't forget that NBU Appliance use VxVM for volume management and VxVM's built-in DMP for multipathing.

See http://www.veritas.com/docs/000103061