New Clariion User needs help with simple questions!

Thank you

Just to Clarify, when you say "Automatically owned by SP B" Are you referring to the fact that it defaults to assigning SP B for LUNs on the RAID Group? Or are you actually using the Auto Assign function?

If you are using Auto Assign, you shouldn't. As RRR stated you should always define a default owner for a LUN.

Personally I never do the auto assign on a new lun. I always "balance" the luns between SPA and SPB. for example: I always attach all odd luns to SPA and all even ones to SPB.
The problem you're describing is new to me. I wouldn't use the auto setting. Stick to manually assigning luns to either SPA or SPB.

OK, thanks for that advice, I will always specify the controller.

However, my problem is still there, I have removed my LUNS etc and when I add them back in, if I manually select SP A, my servers build fine, if I specify SP B, the install fails!!

Have I some bad hardware? Or old firmware? Where would I look if I had?

Thanks

Check it out: http://hcl.xensource.com/?showall=yes&subtab=storage
Clariion is not supported (yet) !

Does Xen support FC attached storage ? I'm seriously in doubt here

Not sure if the fail over mode on the intiator is something to do here

From Primus (KnowledgeBase) article emc1818:

Auto-assign controls the ownership of a LUN when an SP fails in a storage system with two SPs. With Auto Assign enabled, if the SP that owns the LUN fails and the server tries to access that LUN through the second SP, the second SP assumes ownership of the LUN so the access can occur. The second SP continues to own the LUN until the failed SP is replaced and the storage system is powered up. Ownership of the LUN is then returned to its default owner.

If auto-assign is disabled in the previous situation, the other SP does not assume ownership of the LUN, so access to the LUN does not occur. A failover application such as ATF, PowerPath or PVLinks would assume responsibility for issuing the ownership change.

If you are running Application-Transparent Failover (ATF), PowerPath or Alternate Pathing (PVLINKs) on a UNIX server connected to the storage system, you must disable auto assign in order for ATF, PowerPath or PVLINKs to fail over LUNs to the working SP when the original owning SP fails.

You enable or disable auto assign for a LUN when you bind it. During the BIND operation, auto-assign is DISABLED by default on Fibre Channel arrays and ENABLED by default on SCSI-based arrays. You can also enable or disable this option after the LUN is bound without affecting the data or accessibility to the LUN.

The auto-assign property of a LUN can transfer control of a LUN from one SP to another. It is used in those rare configurations where no failover software is in place to perform a machine-initiated failover without operator intervention.

Allowing auto-assign to transfer ownership of a LUN from one SP to another can affect how the operating system accesses the LUN. Using this option would require the operator to make a system level change in order to access LUNs on the new device path.

Note: For HP-UX environments using Alternate Pathing, auto-assign will not enable PVLinks. You must enable auto-trespass using the appropriate methods described in the installation documentation.


glen