This is a following post for my previous SAN migration post  Solaris host level SAN migration (with SVM) from Clariion to VMAX.   As discussed earlier in my previous post,  many organisations started migrating their Server storage from Old legacy SAN devices ( e.g. EMC Clariion )  to new  powerful SAN storage ( e.g. EMC Symetrix VMAX) because of the low performance and maintenance costs involved with legacy storage.  

                           Depending on the budget allocated for the Storage Migration projects, some organisations  prefer the migration by “direct storage level data replication  using expensive migration tools”,  while the other companies ( who are with limited budget) prefer to do the migrations by host level data replication. In the later method,  the success rate of the migration project directly depends on the skill level and expertise of the  unix administrator who is implementing the migration project.  I believe this hands-on post will give some idea for the Solaris admins whoever responsible for the Storage migrations. Before going to this post you might want to refer this post for the pre-planning tasks. 

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Configuring SAN storage is usual task of system administration in Enterprise network environment. And Of course  there is lot of  engineering activity involved in certifying a process , that defines the guidelines on what hardware / software matrix should be used for stabled operating environment.

In this post , we are assuming that the server is Solaris OS and configuring with EMC clarion device. Please note the instructions given here are may vary depends on many different variables and may/may not work for your specific environment, but you can always use these instructions as guidelines to define solution specific to your environment.

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Solaris Multipathing software MPXIO operate now with new arrays using other protocols like SAS or iscsi, . The old Solaris luxadm command still manage FC arrays, but mpathadm command has been developed to work on all the arrays using FC, SAS, and Iscsi connections. Full Story

Below is the sample scenario where we tried to restore the dead paths of SAN connection using the powermt commands.

Warning: Please use any of these commands only if you  understand the current storage setup of your server clearly.  Full Story

To simplify the Storage addition operation, i just made a quick cheat sheet for your easy understanding and  quick reference, since this information cannot be presented as html format i will be sharing it in image format, which you can print and use it as desk reference during your day to day operations.

In this Post i will be presenting the sequence of procedure for the configuration EMC storage ( VMAX ) in Solaris 8 and Solaris 10 with EMC power path installed. And also including the procedure to configure the Storage using Solaris Native multipathing MPxIO.

And I am open to improve this procedures with your experience and comments . Please feel free to add more information to this sheet, so that I can prepare the improved version of the Storage configuration.

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HBA firmware upgrades on Solaris servers.

In continuation to pre works for storage migration, herein I will be presenting HBA Firmware upgrades on Solaris servers (using Emulex & Lpfc utilities).

We will be upgrading HBA Firmware from version 2.72a2 to 2.82a4 for HBA Model Model: LPe11002-M4 (The procedure for all model will remain same).

1.) Before proceeding with any upgrades, always run an explorer and EMCgrub utility on the server to collect existing server outputs as this
upgrade requires server to be rebooted.

Note: a.) Some useful files which needs to be backed up before proceeding:

# cd /var/tmp/yogesh-upgrade
# /etc/powermt version > powermt_version
# /etc/powermt display dev=all > powermt_display
# echo | format > format.out
# df -k > df -k.out
# cp -p /etc/system /etc/system.date
# cp –p /kernel/drv/sd.conf sd.conf.date
# cp -p /kernel/drv/lpfc.conf lpfc.conf.date
# cp –p /kernel/drv/fp.conf /kernel/drv/fp.conf.date
# cp –p /kernel/drv/st.conf /kernel/drv/st.conf.date
# cp –p /etc/name_to_major /etc/name_to_major.date
# cp –p /kernel/drv/emcp.conf /kernel/drv/emcp.conf.date
# ls –l /devices/pseudo | grep -v root > pseudo_ownership
# pkginfo -l EMCpower > emc_version
# modinfo | grep emcp > /var/tmp/emp_modinfo
# /etc/emcpreg –list > emc_key Full Story