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 FS7300 PBHA restrictions

Jorge Barriga's profile image
Jorge Barriga posted Mon November 04, 2024 03:25 PM

Our client has implemented FS9100, FS5200, FS5000 storage in Hyperswap mode, for its different platforms such as AIX (in cluster), VMWare (in cluster).
With the Hyperswap mode, there are volumes that the hosts see, but the same hosts also have volumes that are not in Hyperswap mode.
From the volumes in Hyperswap, from the copies of the secondary site, a consistency group is created to take snapshots that are presented to other servers to work with the data.
The volumes are created either in the main site or in the alternate site.

They have acquired new FS7300 storage (2) which is at version 8.7.0.1 and the PBHA was applied correctly.
The client was explained the PBHA restrictions.
The client is now working with volume assignment and observed the following:
- The assignment of LUNs can only be from those that are part of the storage partition (HA) and local volumes cannot be created.
- A preferred site cannot be chosen since in the storage partition configuration the alternate site appears as passive, so the pool when creating the volume must always be the primary one.
- If a LUN is created that does not belong to the Storage Partition, it cannot be assigned to the Host that already belongs to the Storage partition.
- If you want to add more wwpn identifiers to a host that is in the storage partition, it is not allowed.
- If you try to create a volume in an alternate site that is part of a volume Group, it is not possible because the alternate site is the passive one.

The question is, will these features be available at some point?

Note. At the client's request, it had to be configured again in Hyperswap mode.

Nezih Boyacioglu's profile image
Nezih Boyacioglu IBM Champion

We go back to HyperSwap for the same reason. Customer has few critical volumes and wants to use as HA, but single copy is fine for the rest. 

Evelyn Perez's profile image
Evelyn Perez

Hello - 

- The assignment of LUNs can only be from those that are part of the storage partition (HA) and local volumes cannot be created.
This is not completely true - You absolutely CAN create local and HA volumes on the same system, however, a host cannot have volumes that are Both HA and Local.  One of the many values of PBHA over Hyperswap is that you can maintain access to local only volumes in the event of link failure, whereas in Hyperswap if you lose access to the other site, you will lose access to the local and HA volumes.  Please be aware, there is an existing Idea to allow hosts to exist in multiple partitions that you/your client should consider voting on IBM Aha!

- A preferred site cannot be chosen since in the storage partition configuration the alternate site appears as passive, so the pool when creating the volume must always be the primary one.
You need to use the active management system to create volume for the partition - this is correct.  However, you can create local only partitions, dictating the active management system.

- If a LUN is created that does not belong to the Storage Partition, it cannot be assigned to the Host that already belongs to the Storage partition.
This is correct at time of writing.

- If you want to add more wwpn identifiers to a host that is in the storage partition, it is not allowed.
This is a current restriction at time of writing.

- If you try to create a volume in an alternate site that is part of a volume Group, it is not possible because the alternate site is the passive one.
You need to use the active management system to create volumes for a partition.  This is core to the design to avoid making you do things in two places (another key value of Policy based management).  Please be aware, that a system may have multiple partitions and they do not need to have the same active management system across the set.

I hope this helps.  If you or your client have any questions about PBHA and want to get more details or a roadmap, please reach out to your IBM Sales contacts for more information.  We also provide playbacks and design feedback with the development team if they want to get involved in the design thinking process.

Timur Teamurov's profile image
Timur Teamurov

Hi Folks! 
2x FS7300 with 8.7.1 FW, PBR HA with Storage Partitions (+IP Quorum on 3-d site), distance between sites (site1 and site2) around 5km.
Now testing, failover, HA, etc.
From our simulation: in case of full failure FS7300-1 (we shutdown storage) on site1 (Active Management System + Preffered System), IP Quorum not available (shutdown VMs with Quorum) volumes (storage partition, PBR HA) are in status "offline" on second alive FS7300-2.

Trying to bring them "online" on FS7300-2 using command chvolumegroupreplication -mode independent -accessdivergedcopy test_volume_group - error, "The command failed because modifications are only allowed at the active management system for objects associated with a storage partition."

How to "present" volumes back to hosts in these situation?

Thanks in advance!

Nezih Boyacioglu's profile image
Nezih Boyacioglu IBM Champion

Hi Jorge,

I found idea in the portal after Evelyn mentioned, you can also vote in here https://ibm-sys-storage.ideas.ibm.com/ideas/SCSI-I-1327

Thank you Evelyn.

Jorge Barriga's profile image
Jorge Barriga

Evelyn

Thank you very much for the response. The flexibility that Hyperswap has in the management of volumes, hosts, sites, etc., would be good if it could be taken into account for the PBHA.
Participate in the vote
Regards.