| Author |
Problem Connecting HP Blade to IBM SAN
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| I have been trying to connect our HP BladeSystem to our IBM SAN with no
luck. I have tried with an hp bl25p and a bl30p. Our zoning is
correct because the QLogic BIOS on these blades can see the LUN
assigned to it. However when windows is booted neither the os or the
QLogic SanSurfer sees the lun. We have other devices connecting to the
SAN perfectly but these are the first HP Blades to get connected.
Has anyone gotten a similar setup working or can suggest possible
drivers to use? I've used drivers from IBM, Qlogic, and HP. Each
driver is slightly different, go figure, but none work.
Hardware:
OS - Windows Server 2003 w/SP1 and all updates
HBA - QLA2312 ( i've tried drivers for this card as well as for the
QLA2340 )
SAN - IBM DS4000 ( supposed to be compatible with HP blades, or so they
say )
I greatly appreciate any assistance with this frustrating problem.
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| Moojit 2006-03-23, 8:54 pm |
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"Viper" <rtiebout@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1142951031.879683.218380@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>I have been trying to connect our HP BladeSystem to our IBM SAN with no
> luck. I have tried with an hp bl25p and a bl30p. Our zoning is
> correct because the QLogic BIOS on these blades can see the LUN
> assigned to it. However when windows is booted neither the os or the
> QLogic SanSurfer sees the lun. We have other devices connecting to the
> SAN perfectly but these are the first HP Blades to get connected.
> Has anyone gotten a similar setup working or can suggest possible
> drivers to use? I've used drivers from IBM, Qlogic, and HP. Each
> driver is slightly different, go figure, but none work.
> Hardware:
> OS - Windows Server 2003 w/SP1 and all updates
> HBA - QLA2312 ( i've tried drivers for this card as well as for the
> QLA2340 )
> SAN - IBM DS4000 ( supposed to be compatible with HP blades, or so they
> say )
>
> I greatly appreciate any assistance with this frustrating problem.
Verify that the World Wide Port Names on the Qlogic HBA's did not change
once the o/s is loaded. If your zoning is based on WWPN, this would be one
explanation.
>
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| Teracloud has a free FC ping utility that pings on WWPN. This might
help you determine if your WWPN is changing. (Ping yourself)
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| Thanks for the free FC ping utility. I was able to get replies from
another system, not an HP blade, from the san and the LUN's assigned to
it.
Trying from the Blades with the problem however it still doesn't work.
using the option of fcping -d, which looks for remote devices, it
doesnt' find anything.
The Qlogic BIOS and the OS see both the same WWN for the host. Our
zoning is based on wwn but since the os and the card see the same name
then that should still work.
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| Moojit 2006-03-23, 8:54 pm |
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"Viper" <rtiebout@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1143138279.913122.252240@j33g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Thanks for the free FC ping utility. I was able to get replies from
> another system, not an HP blade, from the san and the LUN's assigned to
> it.
> Trying from the Blades with the problem however it still doesn't work.
> using the option of fcping -d, which looks for remote devices, it
> doesnt' find anything.
>
> The Qlogic BIOS and the OS see both the same WWN for the host. Our
> zoning is based on wwn but since the os and the card see the same name
> then that should still work.
>
Typically , there are two unique 64-bit identifiers per HBA port. The
Worldwide Node Name and the Worldwide Port Name. Qlogic follows this rule.
Your zoning should be based on the Port Name not the Node Name. The best
way to check if the WWPN is changing, log into the fibre channel switch
management console and compare the WWNN/WWPN when only the Option ROM is
logged into the fabric vs. when the driver initializes and the o/s is
running. Also, if you're using any type of host based access on the target
(LUN masking), the WWNN/WWPN changing between option rom vs. driver would
break this as well.
The Moojit
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| ramcke44 2006-03-25, 10:01 am |
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"Viper" <rtiebout@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1142951031.879683.218380@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>I have been trying to connect our HP BladeSystem to our IBM SAN with no
> luck. I have tried with an hp bl25p and a bl30p. Our zoning is
> correct because the QLogic BIOS on these blades can see the LUN
> assigned to it. However when windows is booted neither the os or the
> QLogic SanSurfer sees the lun. We have other devices connecting to the
> SAN perfectly but these are the first HP Blades to get connected.
> Has anyone gotten a similar setup working or can suggest possible
> drivers to use? I've used drivers from IBM, Qlogic, and HP. Each
> driver is slightly different, go figure, but none work.
> Hardware:
> OS - Windows Server 2003 w/SP1 and all updates
> HBA - QLA2312 ( i've tried drivers for this card as well as for the
> QLA2340 )
> SAN - IBM DS4000 ( supposed to be compatible with HP blades, or so they
> say )
>
> I greatly appreciate any assistance with this frustrating problem.
>
What switch and SAN OS are you connecting to? Is it Cisco?
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| Viper 2006-03-31, 12:15 am |
| I was able to get an HP rep out to look at the problem first hand and
after a few days of both of us being completely confused, we turned up
a driver that was hidden on IBM's website which supported connecting
our HBA to an ibm san. after this was installed all is now well with
the blades and the san. I thank you all for your insight.
| |
| ramcke44 2006-04-09, 7:01 pm |
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"Viper" <rtiebout@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1143736213.601613.138600@v46g2000cwv.googlegroups.com...
>I was able to get an HP rep out to look at the problem first hand and
> after a few days of both of us being completely confused, we turned up
> a driver that was hidden on IBM's website which supported connecting
> our HBA to an ibm san. after this was installed all is now well with
> the blades and the san. I thank you all for your insight.
>
What type switch are you using, cisco had a problem with Qlogic blade server
HBAs.
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ramcke44 wrote:
> "Viper" <rtiebout@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1143736213.601613.138600@v46g2000cwv.googlegroups.com...
>
> What type switch are you using, cisco had a problem with Qlogic blade server
> HBAs.
the fiber switches that we use are a combination of IBM, EMC and HP but
they are all brocade switches.
It seems as if the driver that i said worked, hasn't actually fixed all
our problems so i'm still in search of more things that i can
troubleshoot, if anyone has any new information.
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| ramcke44 2006-04-30, 1:13 pm |
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"Viper" <rtiebout@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1144431410.093125.92070@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> ramcke44 wrote:
>
> the fiber switches that we use are a combination of IBM, EMC and HP but
> they are all brocade switches.
>
> It seems as if the driver that i said worked, hasn't actually fixed all
> our problems so i'm still in search of more things that i can
> troubleshoot, if anyone has any new information.
>
Qlogic blade HBAs use a WWN format that is typically reserved for targets.
Some older switch firmware versions have problems with this as they are not
expecting to zone a target to a target. We ran into this when we first
deployed blades a couple of years ago on cisco switches. This may not be the
case with Brocade but I would try upgrading the switch firmware first.
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| Moojit 2006-05-01, 1:15 am |
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"ramcke44" <ramcke44spamfree@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:c8Odnd0BZMptI8nZRVn-jQ@comcast.com...
>
> "Viper" <rtiebout@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1144431410.093125.92070@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Qlogic blade HBAs use a WWN format that is typically reserved for targets.
> Some older switch firmware versions have problems with this as they are
> not expecting to zone a target to a target. We ran into this when we first
> deployed blades a couple of years ago on cisco switches. This may not be
> the case with Brocade but I would try upgrading the switch firmware first.
>
World Wide Node and Port Name format is defined by T11 and there was never a
special format for targets. At most, a switch will parse the IEEE address
contained within the WWNN/WWPN to try and determine who the vendor is. Most
WWNN/WWPN are based on the IEEE Extended format, please reference FC-FS
specification, section 14.
What problem are you still experiencing?
Da Moojit
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| ramcke44 2006-05-01, 7:13 am |
|
"Moojit" <moojit@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:0wd5g.3528$eI4.2220@tornado.texas.rr.com...
>
> "ramcke44" <ramcke44spamfree@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:c8Odnd0BZMptI8nZRVn-jQ@comcast.com...
> World Wide Node and Port Name format is defined by T11 and there was never
> a special format for targets. At most, a switch will parse the IEEE
> address contained within the WWNN/WWPN to try and determine who the vendor
> is. Most WWNN/WWPN are based on the IEEE Extended format, please
> reference FC-FS specification, section 14.
>
> What problem are you still experiencing?
>
> Da Moojit
I am not experienceing any problems and I am aware of the IEEE WWN spec, but
in reality targets typically begin with a 5, at least all EMC, HP and IBM
targets on my SAN do. The only exception I have seen is the Qlogic blade
HBAs (there may be others but I have not seen them). According to HP some
switch manufactures employed a shortcut in their OS code to assume that WWN
beginning with a 5 were targets. The result was that the card would login to
the fabric and you could zone the adapter but you would not be able to
present disk. There was a work around to this which we successfully tested
but it was kludgy, the better fix was to upgrade the SAN OS to remove this
obstacle.
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| Moojit 2006-05-01, 7:13 am |
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"ramcke44" <ramcke44spamfree@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:0dKdnREheoySScjZRVn-jQ@comcast.com...
>
> "Moojit" <moojit@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:0wd5g.3528$eI4.2220@tornado.texas.rr.com...
> I am not experienceing any problems and I am aware of the IEEE WWN spec,
> but in reality targets typically begin with a 5, at least all EMC, HP and
> IBM targets on my SAN do. The only exception I have seen is the Qlogic
> blade HBAs (there may be others but I have not seen them). According to HP
> some switch manufactures employed a shortcut in their OS code to assume
> that WWN beginning with a 5 were targets. The result was that the card
> would login to the fabric and you could zone the adapter but you would not
> be able to present disk. There was a work around to this which we
> successfully tested but it was kludgy, the better fix was to upgrade the
> SAN OS to remove this obstacle.
>
HP is wrong. The fact that EMC has 0x5 in it's most signficant byte is
coincidence. A switch (like all nodes) can determine if a node is an
initiator and/or target by inspecting the Initiator bit returned in the PRLI
accept frame. Brocade, McData, Qlogic, etc. switches do not care if a node
is a target or initiator, zoning algrorithm's are not based on this. Sorry
for coming down so hard, but this is the kind of mis-information that get's
thrown around by computer experts all of the time.
Da Moojit
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| carmelomcc 2006-05-02, 1:14 pm |
| There is a global setting that may have to be changed on the brocade
switch. The hp blade server uses a core switch policy and most brocade
switches not set to that by default. On a brocade to fix this you
must set PortCfgISLMode to 1. Then the ISL will work correctly and
the servers should see the luns.
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| Where should this ISL mode be set to ON? in my case i have three
brocade switches connected in a chain:
------ ------ ------
| |------| |-------| |
| | | | | |
------ ------- ------
They're all part of the same fabric. should isl be turned on for all
the ports connecting the switches together? or just for the port the
blade actually connects to?
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| Moojit 2006-05-04, 1:12 am |
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"Viper" <rtiebout@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1146671421.210866.65060@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Where should this ISL mode be set to ON? in my case i have three
> brocade switches connected in a chain:
> ------ ------ ------
> | |------| |-------| |
> | | | | | |
> ------ ------- ------
>
> They're all part of the same fabric. should isl be turned on for all
> the ports connecting the switches together? or just for the port the
> blade actually connects to?
>
You should not have to configure anything on the ports they will ISL
automatically. Each switch will needs it's own Domain ID and you will have
to configure this manually on each switch. For each of the three switches,
set the domain ID's 1,2 and 3.
Da Moojit
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| carmelomcc 2006-05-05, 1:13 pm |
| You need to do the seeting below:
There is a global setting that may have to be changed on the brocade
switch. The hp blade server uses a core switch policy and most brocade
switches not set to that by default. On a brocade to fix this you
must set PortCfgISLMode to 1. Then the ISL will work correctly and
the servers should see the luns.
on the switch as a global variable. The qlogic blade based servers use
a CORE setting on the HP solution. The switch you run uses native and
needs to be changed to core for correct communication. I have
implemented a few of these solutions now and that is always the gotcha.
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| The answer to this problem was finally found. The answer that seems to
have solved this problem was to use an Emulex HBA instead of the
Qlogic. After installing drivers and checking bios versions for the
Emulex, re-zoning and assigning the LUN, a second hard drive magically
appeared when rescaning for new disks (something that the qlogic card
couldn't do).
So it would seem that the problem was with qlogic and its coexistance
in an hp blade when connecting to an IBM SAN. Thanks for all the
assistance, your insight offered solutions that I would not have
thought of.
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