Gatekeeper Devices on VMAX

a) any 3mb 2-way-mirr device can be defined as a gatekeeper

symdev list -sid -cap 3

b) i've used that command but i find it not very reliable, sometimes it will not report all hosts that have SE installed.

Dynamox:

Thanks a billion once again. I am just trying to clean up some mess that I have inherited. I see zillions of 3MB Devices scattered around. Some of them have even been defined as WD (write disabled) for unknown reasons. I think when SE is installed it also automatically picks up some devices to communicate with the arrays if it does not see GK Luns masked to the server.

Thanks for your inputs - really appreciate it.

KGD.

Interesting, I see that it has picked up an ACLX device - although there were other devices available. Not sure if the gatekeeper flag was set on these small devices. Let me look...

Dynamox :

How do I set or view the inquiry gate keeper flag? Using SMC I tried to check the menu/forms for Attributes, Identifiers, Status under Device Configuration. I am sure I am looking at the wrong place. If you have the equivalent CLI command - that would also help. Thanks again.

-KGD.

Gatekeeper candidates

Solutions Enabler selects certain devices from the list of all PDEVs to

be gatekeeper candidates and automatically excludes the following

PDEVS from the candidate list:

◆ BCVs

◆ Thin devices

◆ Virtual devices (VDEVs)

Solutions Enabler selects a gatekeeper from the candidate list based

on a preestablished priority scheme. The gatekeeper priority list

includes all gatekeeper candidates prioritized from the highest to the

lowest, as shown below:

1. Small (< 10 cylinders) devices, marked by the Symmetrix array

with the inquiry gatekeeper flag.

2. Standard non-RDF and non-metadevices.

3. RDF R1 devices.

4. RDF R2 devices.

5. VCM/ACLX devices.

no problem, make sure to use dedicated gatekeepers for each host that is going to do any significant amount of symcli calls (ECC, SMC, SPA, Solutions Enabler)

Thanks for the tip Dynamox:

Last question (s) [I promise - and sorry for shooting so many]:

When I try to run the symgate command on my Windows Server - I see that there are no GateKeeper devices defined. However, when I run the "syminq" command it gives me a bunch of Gatekeeper devices belonging to the same Array. What do I conclude from this? That the Windows Server has automatically defined these devices as GateKeepers? Can I just remove them (disassociate) and then define them as dedicated GateKeepers? Shouldnt I also add these devices to the respective Storage Group and Masking views eventually?

C:\Program Files\EMC\SYMCLI\bin>symgate list -sid 3333

Symmetrix ID: 000192603333

No GateKeeper devices were found.

C:\Program Files\EMC\SYMCLI\bin>syminq

          Device                   Product                   Device

------------------------- --------------------------- ---------------------

Name               Type   Vendor    ID           Rev  Ser Num      Cap (KB)

------------------------- --------------------------- ---------------------

\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE0        VMware    Virtual disk 1.0  N/A         104857600

\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE1 GK     EMC       SYMMETRIX    5875 440007C000       2880

\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE2 GK     EMC       SYMMETRIX    5875 440007D000       2880

\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE3 GK     EMC       SYMMETRIX    5875 440007E000       2880

\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE4 GK     EMC       SYMMETRIX    5875 440007F000       2880

\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE5 GK     EMC       SYMMETRIX    5875 4400080000       2880

\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE6 GK     EMC       SYMMETRIX    5875 4400081000       2880

\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE7 GK     EMC       SYMMETRIX    5875 4400082000       2880

\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE8 GK     EMC       SYMMETRIX    5875 4400083000       2880

\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE9 GK     EMC       SYMMETRIX    5875 4400084000       2880

C:\Program Files\EMC\SYMCLI\bin>

yep, looks like syminq picked them up as gatekeepers, i still like to manually define them using "symgate define". You don't need to remove them from the host to do that, simly run:

symgate define pd \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE1

after that they should be listed in symgate list

Thanks Dynamox.

I was looking at using the "symgate define" option. I was reading Chapter 10 in the document attached below and that is what it recommends. I have never tried that one before - good to know that you use it. Thanks for your help.

https://powerlink.emc.com/nsepn/webapps/btg548664833igtcuup4826/km/live1/en_US/Offering_Technical/Technical_Documentation/300-002-939_a08.pdf?mtcs=ZXZlbnRUeXBlPUttQ2xpY2tDb250ZW50RXZlbnQsZG9jdW1lbnRJZD0wOTAxNDA2NjgwNGUzMGZhLGRvY3VtZW50VHlwZT1wZGYsbmF2ZU5vZGU9MGIwMTQwNjY4MDRlMjY4Nl9Hcmlk

you can create gatekeeper devices with this command:

symconfigure -sid 1234 -cmd "create gatekeeper count=1 emulation=FBA;" commit

after that you need to add these devices to the storage group/masking view, you are correct.

Excellent! Thanks a billion again.