Data Storage - qlogic failover driver

Author

qlogic failover driver

bjornhenrikformo@gmail.com

2005-12-01, 8:48 pm

I have a Windows Server 2003 with 2 Qlogic QLA2340 FC HBAs and I'm
trying to configure these for failover. I'm using the latest drivers
for the cards, and the SANsurfer FC HBA manager to configure them. The
SAN is accessible, but it seems only one of the cards reaches the SAN.
Diskmanager in Windows shows Disk 0 as the SAN-disk, this I have
formatted, and it is identified as "SUN T4 SCSI Disk Device". Disk 1
however, is "unknown", but on the properties for this, it also says
"SUN T4 SCSI Disk Device".

Windows obviously sees the disk (the SAN) as 2 separate disks.
Accessing the SAN is ok, but only on one of the FC-cards. One of them
(on of the FC-card) can be disabled, while accessing the disk, but
disabling the second card (the first re-enabled), Windows promps me to
restart Windows in order for changes to take effect. Restarting, the
SAN-disk is gone. Enabling the card, the SAN-disk comes back.

In SANsurfer, however, their configuration seems pretty much the same.
They both seems to have contact with the SUN SAN (sounds chinese).

First; Is Windows supposed to see these two disks, one of them beeing
"unknown", the other like any other disk that can be assigned a drive
letter and formatted etc?? Or is there something completely wrong here?

Second; QLA2340 is supposed to support failover, but whenever I try to
start the failover-wizard, it pops an error: "Must have an hba model
that is not running a supported driver to configure". When configuring
the cards, when saving the configuration, I'm prompted: "The failover
driver is not running on host, my-server-name. Failover will not be
functional". What failover driver is he/she talking about?

Any information here will be highly appreciated.

Bjorn Henrik Formo.

Maxim S. Shatskih

2005-12-01, 8:48 pm

Run devmgmt.msc in Windows and say View Devices By Connection in the menu.

In what tree branches will you see the 2 "SCSI Disk Devices"?

I think that Windows sees 2 cards as separate cards (not as failover
group), and thus sees the 2 instances of the same SAN LUN (via 2 paths).

If this is so - then sorry, I do not expect Windows to be able to solve
this, and your chance is with QLogic software, drivers and hardware only.

--
Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP
StorageCraft Corporation
maxim@storagecraft.com
http://www.storagecraft.com

<bjornhenrikformo@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1133454203.854390.227010@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> I have a Windows Server 2003 with 2 Qlogic QLA2340 FC HBAs and I'm
> trying to configure these for failover. I'm using the latest drivers
> for the cards, and the SANsurfer FC HBA manager to configure them. The
> SAN is accessible, but it seems only one of the cards reaches the SAN.
> Diskmanager in Windows shows Disk 0 as the SAN-disk, this I have
> formatted, and it is identified as "SUN T4 SCSI Disk Device". Disk 1
> however, is "unknown", but on the properties for this, it also says
> "SUN T4 SCSI Disk Device".
>
> Windows obviously sees the disk (the SAN) as 2 separate disks.
> Accessing the SAN is ok, but only on one of the FC-cards. One of them
> (on of the FC-card) can be disabled, while accessing the disk, but
> disabling the second card (the first re-enabled), Windows promps me to
> restart Windows in order for changes to take effect. Restarting, the
> SAN-disk is gone. Enabling the card, the SAN-disk comes back.
>
> In SANsurfer, however, their configuration seems pretty much the same.
> They both seems to have contact with the SUN SAN (sounds chinese).
>
> First; Is Windows supposed to see these two disks, one of them beeing
> "unknown", the other like any other disk that can be assigned a drive
> letter and formatted etc?? Or is there something completely wrong here?
>
> Second; QLA2340 is supposed to support failover, but whenever I try to
> start the failover-wizard, it pops an error: "Must have an hba model
> that is not running a supported driver to configure". When configuring
> the cards, when saving the configuration, I'm prompted: "The failover
> driver is not running on host, my-server-name. Failover will not be
> functional". What failover driver is he/she talking about?
>
> Any information here will be highly appreciated.
>
> Bjorn Henrik Formo.
>

bjoernf

2005-12-02, 7:46 am

You are right in assuming that Windows sees the cards, not as a group,
but as to separate. Qlogic documentation says much about failover, and
a failover driver, but doesn't say what driver this is...the SANsurfer
has a wizard for failover, but promps that the failover driver is not
running. Which failover driver? There are (explicit) failover drivers
for Linux, but it saus nothing about failover in downloads for Windows.
The Documentation for the cards states, however, that failover can be
done with the cards in Win2k and Win2k3. It does NOT state WHAT makes
that failover happen. There are references to have to set up failover,
but they all assume this failover driver to be up and running...there
seems to be something similar to SecurePath for HP, which Qlogic rather
not mentions.......

So I guess my questuion is, what is the failover software for qlogic
cards (this can be QLDirect, but it is barely mentioned on the website,
and undownloadable...)(and the cards are really qlogic, not shipped to
HP or SUN and flashed mith third party BIOS).

In advance, Thanks.

Bjorn Henrik Formo.

bjoernf

2005-12-07, 7:52 am

Well, eventually I got in touch with support at Qlogic. Allthough this
is not really a support issue - there is no "problem" anywhere; I just
wanted to know HOW failover is done, what are the requirements for
failover to happen. And it amazes me first, that nobody answered me
here, since this is really an easy question. The support person at
qlogic support however, never really answered my question - is
SANsurfer PRO management suite plus the latest drivers for the FC
adapters enough for failover to happen, if configured right that is?
Tier 2 support eventually told me I needed QLDirect, a program which is
no longer supported or distributed, gave me a link for that program.
The link was, unsuprisingly, dead. The funny thing is: Using QLDirect,
the SANsurfer Management Suite is not supported. So why on earth is
there a "failover wizard" in SANsurfer Management Suite ??? Someone
must be lying - either the tier 2 support, or the documentation for
SANsurfer MS. The tier 3 support's response however is that Qlogic does
not support failover for my SUN SAN. I still do not know wether the
SANsurfer PRO Management Suite, the latest drivers for my card, and a
SAN (of a supported type) is enough for failover, or if other 3rd party
software is needed.

Arne Joris

2005-12-07, 5:49 pm

I don't know about the others in this forum, but I only have experience
on UNIX servers.
Failover with Qlogic 2340 works just fine on Linux for example, where
the (failover) driver recognizes two paths to a device, picks one
(random or whichever one you configured) and gives you only one device.
This of course, is assuming you have disks that use the FC convention
that both ports on a disk share the same node WWN (different port WWN).
I don't know if your 'SUN disks' do this, or if they need some specific
driver on top of the HBA driver to recognize multiple paths to devices.