DataCore Server Settings
Operating System Type
When registering the Host running HP-UX choose the ‘HP HP-UX’ menu option.
Port Roles
Ports that are used to serve virtual disks (vDisks) to hosts should only have the Front-end (FE) role checked. While it is technically possible to check additional roles on an FE port (i.e., Mirror and Backend), this may cause unexpected results after stopping the SANsymphony software.
Any port with FE role (and is serving vDisks to hosts) also has either the mirror and/or backend role enabled will remain ‘active’ even when the SANsymphony software is stopped. There is some slight difference in behavior depending on the version of SANsymphony installed.
SANsymphony 10.0 PSP7 and earlier
Any port that has the mirror and/or back-end role checked will remain ‘active’ after the SANsymphony software has been stopped.
SANsymphony 10.0 PSP8 and later
Only ports with the back-end role checked will remain ‘active’ after the SANsymphony software has been stopped.
FE ports that are serving vDisks but remain active after the SANsymphony software has been stopped can cause unexpected results for some host operating systems as they continue to try to access vDisks from the ‘active’ port on the now-stopped DataCore Server. This, in turn, may end up delaying host fail-over or result in complete loss of access from the host’s application/virtual machines (VM).
Multipathing
The Multipathing Support option should be enabled so that mirrored vDisks or dual vDisks can be served to hosts from all available DataCore FE ports.
Also See
Non-mirrored vDisks and multipathing
Non-mirrored vDisks can still be served to multiple hosts and/or multiple host ports from one or more DataCore Server FE Ports if required; in this case, the host can use its own multipathing software to manage the multiple host paths to the single vDisk as if it was a mirrored or dual vDisk.
ALUA Support
ALUA (Asymmetrical Logical Unit Access) is not supported.
Serving Virtual Disks
The first time
DataCore recommends that before serving vDisks for the first time to a host, all DataCore FE ports on all DataCore Servers are correctly discovered by the host first.
Then, from within the SANsymphony Console, the vDisk is marked Online, up to date and that the storage sources have a host access status of Read/Write.
To more than one host port
DataCore vDisks always have their own unique Network Address Authority (NAA) identifier that a Host can use to manage the same vDisk being served to multiple ports on the same host server and the same vDisk being served to multiple Hosts.
While DataCore cannot guarantee that a disk device's NAA is used by a host's operating system to identify a disk device served to it over different paths generally we have found that it is. Additionally, while there is sometimes a convention that all paths by the same disk device always using the same LUN 'number' guarantees consistency for device identification, this may not be technically true. Always refer to the Host Operating System vendor’s documentation for advice on this.
DataCore's Software does, however always try to create mappings between the host's ports and the DataCore Server's FE ports for a vDisk using the same LUN number where it can. The software will first find the next available (lowest) LUN 'number' for the Host- DataCore FE mapping combination being applied and will then try to apply that same LUN number for all other mappings that are being attempted when the vDisk is being served. If any Host-DataCore FE port combination being requested at that moment is already using that same LUN number (e.g. if a host has other vDisks served to it from previous) then the software will find the next available LUN number and apply that to those specific Host-DataCore FE mappings only.
Also See