cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Ongoing issues with SFW HA 5.1 and iSCSI on Windows 2003 Server

kirky76
Level 2
Hi All,

This is a second attempt to try and get to the bottom of an issue I have with SFW HA 5.1 and iSCSI disk group import. The problem has been described by others on this forum and manifestst itslef as an iSCSI disk group not being imported after a system reboot. I have followed the installation guide to the letter and have configured the Veritas DG Delayed Import Service as required when using a regular Ethernet NIC for iSCSI. I have MS iSCSI initator v2.08 and my iSCSI Portal is a Windows 2003 Storage Server R2.

Initial connection to the server works absolutely fine and I can create the disk group, volumes etc. and read/write to those volumes. On reboot, iSCSI connection is still active (logged-in) but I cannot access the disk group or the volumes it contains. If I try to logout of the iSCSI Portal then VEA hangs and I get an error. If I logout of the iSCSI target via the MS iSCSI initiator interface and reboot the server, I can reconnect to the iSCSI portal and the disk group can be seen and subsequently re-imported where it will work ok. But of course, after a reboot, it fails again.

I'm very unsure of what I can do to resolve this issue so any help/pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks.
Mark Jackson

3 REPLIES 3

Jay_Kim
Level 5
Employee Accredited Certified

Mark,

Thinking of possibilities:

1. Might be created as a cluster diskgroup. (If so, need to switch it back to non-cluster secondary diskgroup if there is no cluster services)

Is the diskgroup a "cluster" type diskgroup? (Did you create the diskgroup with the cluster option checked?)
If is was created as a cluster diskgroup, then it is normal behaviour for it to not auto-import upon reboot.
If it is not a cluster diskgroup but just a standard diskgroup, it should import upon reboot via the VxDGDI service. (delayed import)

2. VxDMP DSM multipathing. May need to install latest DDI package or something isn't configured properly.

Do you have VxDMP DSM DDI package installed? or did you select DMP when you installed SFW?
(You may see DMP DSM listed in the VEA under the Storage Agent and see disks under the VITARGET if so)
If you are using it, there is a possibility that something is setup wrong with it.

3. Issues with iscsi connection / access to target after a reboot.

Once you reboot, you say the disks are still logged in. At this point, in VEA, do you see the diskgroup at all? (in any state)
Or do you just see the iscsi harddisks down the disks list but do not see any diskgroups?
Maybe you could try using the Windows disk management and see if it works after the reboot also or if it's just SFW not working.

Let me know if anything seems to match.

kirky76
Level 2
Hi Jay,

Many thanks for the response. I am configuring the diskgoup as a cluster group so given your explanation this appears where things are going 'wrong'.

So, given that I have a cluster group, how do I get the disk group to re-import so that I can access the voumes it contains? Do I have to perform the full cluster configuration in order to get this to work?

The simple scenario I'm trying to configure in my lab is two Windows 2003 servers running a network management application and using SFW to provide active/passive HA to the application. The approach is simply that the application will be installed on both servers and SFW will be used to replicate the backend DB between the two servers. Would I need a cluster disk group here? Apologies if this is a vague question - as I'm sure can guess, SFW is not something I no in great detail!

Many thanks again,

Mark

Jay_Kim
Level 5
Employee Accredited Certified
Mark, In a cluster server environment, the cluster will be the one importing/deporting the diskgroups.
So the diskgroup has to be a "cluster diskgroup" and you should not use the delayed import service.
(Hence it doesn't auto-import by itself by Windows/SFW after a reboot. Unless the cluster onlines it.)

If you want to manage/access the volumes prior to the cluster setup, you can simply manually import the diskgroup at that time. =)