Dell Storage Manager 2020 R1 Administrator's Guide

Enable Live Volume ALUA Optimization

Use the ALUA optimization wizard to enable ALUA optimization on existing Live Volumes that are eligible to be upgraded.

1. Click the Replications & Live Volumes view.
2. Click the Live Volumes tab.
   The Live Volumes view is displayed.
3. In the right pane, a Live Volume ALUA banner message is indicates that Live Volumes are available that are eligible for ALUA optimization. On the right side of the banner, click Update to ALUA Optimized.
   The Update to ALUA Optimized wizard opens. The first dialog box displays a list of Live Volumes that are not ALUA optimized but are capable of becoming ALUA optimized.

   NOTE:The Live Volume ALUA banner message is displayed if Dell Storage Manager detects one or more Live Volumes that have not been ALUA optimized and both Storage Centers support ALUA optimization.
4. Select the Live Volumes that you want to optimize and click Next.
   A dialog box displays a warning message and an option to reset the secondary server mappings.

   • If you select the Reset Secondary Server Mappings check box, the server mappings of the Secondary Live Volumes are reset and will cause an immediate outage. A manual rescan must be performed.
   • By default, the Reset Secondary Server Mappings check box is cleared. This will not cause an outage. The secondary side servers must be restarted later during a maintenance operation.

   NOTE:Because enabling Live Volume ALUA is a disruptive process, is should be performed during a maintenance operation.
5. Click Next.
   A dialog box displays a warning message and an option to enable or disable reporting non-optimized paths.

   • By default, the Report Non-optimized Paths check box is selected. This will cause Live Volumes to report non-optimized ALUA paths from the secondary system.
   • If you clear the Reset Secondary Server Mappings check box, Live Volumes will not report non-optimized ALUA paths from the secondary system.

   NOTE:When all paths are reported as non-optimized, Microsoft Multipath Input Output (MPIO) drivers does not perform round-robin path usage as expected. As a result, data transfer is reduced to a single path and causes a long delay for failover. Therefore, using non-optimized paths is not recommended in Microsoft Windows environments and non-optimized path reporting should be disabled.

   NOTE:Certain Windows Server 2016 versions can support non-optimized path reporting properly. For more information and best practice guidelines for configuring MPIO on Microsoft Server 2016, refer to Dell EMC SC Series Storage and Microsoft Multipath I/O white paper located on the Dell support site.
6. Click Finish.
   The results of the ALUA optimization process are displayed.
7. Click OK.