Does VNXe 3200 provide Fail-Safe Networking automatically between SPs?

Question

Hello, Assume I have a VNXe 3200, with a CIFS Server created on SP A, using the Ethernet 2 interface only.  Assume I have Ethernet 2 on SP A and SP B both cabled to the correct Layer 2 network for CIFS.  There is no LCAP / 802.3ad at play, because only a single Ethernet interface is being used.  Let's assume that the Cat6 cable on SP A Ethernet 2 fails, but SP A itself is just fine.  Does the VNXe 3200 automatically and transparently 'float' the IP address from the SP A Eth2 interface to the SP B Eth2 interface? Bonus question: Does the MAC address also move (i.e. virtual floating MAC address), or does the IP address simply get re-registered to the new MAC address on SP B Eth2? Another bonus question: What kind of 'delay' or 'timeout' would a CIFS user see in this case?  Let's say I am in the middle of a large file transfer.  Does the transfer simply 'pause' for 10 seconds, or does the file copy actually get aborted, network share disconnected, and then later on re-connected? Final bonus question: Is the behavior essentially the same for an NFS Server on a VNXe 3200? Thanks, Bill

reedic · Accepted Answer

Hi Bill,

Jyothi is correct, in that fail-safe networking is configured on the VNXe storage systems by default. However, this is only true for the VNXe3100, VNXe3150, and VNXe3300 models. This is noted in the following VNXe High Availability white paper for these models.

VNXe High Availability - VNXe3100, VNXe3150, and VNXe3300

The VNXe3200 does not use fail-safe networking. In the example you provided, the NAS Server that is associated with Ethernet Port 2 on SPA would remain on SPA until the SP reboots or is placed into Service Mode. To survive a link failure on SPA Ethernet Port 2, your NAS Server would need to leverage Link Aggregation. Please take a look at the VNXe3200 High Availability white paper for more information.

VNXe3200 High Availability

Jyothi_P_Bharat · Answer

Hi Bill,

Fail Safe Networking(FSN) is configured on the VNXe storage systems by default.If one of the ports in the storage system fails,FSN will automatically reroute the I/O internally to the corresponding physical port on the peer storage processor.For more information you can refer to the document mentioned below(page 30)

EMC VNXe SERIES STORAGE SYSTEMS

Thanks

Jyothi

boyler05 · Answer

Thanks Jyothi, that is helpful. I knew this was built in to the VNXe 3100, 3150, and 3300, but I was not sure if it was also built in to the VNXe 3200. Glad to hear it is.

Does anyone know the answer to my questions regarding MAC addresses, failover time, etc.?

boyler05 · Answer

Charles,

Thanks so much for taking the time to provide a correct answer on this for the VNXe 3200. I figured that the VNXe 3200 was completely different since it is no longer using the old DART 5.6 code base. I looked through the VNXe 3200 High Availability white paper, and it clearly explains how to set up LACP for network high availability. The biggest issue I see, however, is for customers without stackable switches. Most non-stackable switches do not support LACP across switches, so it would not be possible to set up LACP across SP A Eth4 and Eth5 to two different (non-stackable) switches. In contrast, the old "Fail Safe Networking" capability in the VNXe 3100, 3150, 3300, and Celerra/VNX Unified models, works fine across non-stackable switches, since it is essentially active/passive and not using LACP. Given this constraint, if a potential VNXe 3200 customer wishes to have true network high availability with the VNXe 3200 (on CIFS/NFS), is it a fair statement to make that stackable switches are mandatory (or at the very least, switches that support "virtual stacking")?

Thanks,

Bill

reedic · Answer

Yes, the non-stackable switch configuration does not provide the same level of network high availability on the VNXe3200 as it once did with the other VNXe models (VNXe3100, VNXe3150, and VNXe3300).

boyler05 · Answer

Thanks!  I really appreciate the great help in comparing the VNXe 3200 to the older generation of VNXe.  Makes perfect sense.

VNX

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