Dell CX4 Series User manual

Dell/EMC CX4-series
Fibre Channel Storage Arrays
With Microsoft®Windows
Server®Failover Clusters
Hardware Installation
and Troubleshooting
Guide

Notes, Cautions, and Warnings
NOTE: A NOTE indicates important information that helps you make better use
of your computer.
CAUTION: A CAUTION indicates either potential damage to hardware or
loss of data and tells you how to avoid the problem.
WARNING: A WARNING indicates a potential for property damage, personal
injury, or death.
___________________
Information in this document is subject to change without notice.
© 2008 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Reproduction of these materials in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of Dell Inc.
is strictly forbidden.
Trademarks used in this text: Dell, the DELL logo, PowerEdge, and PowerVault are trademarks of
Dell Inc.; Active Directory, Microsoft,Windows,Windows Server,Windows XP and Windows NT
are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/
or other countries.; EMC, Navisphere,and PowerPath are registered trademarks and MirrorView,
SAN Copy, and SnapView are trademarks of EMC Corporation.
Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities
claiming the marks and names or their products. Dell Inc. disclaims any proprietary interest in
trademarks and trade names other than its own.
October 2008 Rev A00

Contents 3
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Cluster Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Cluster Hardware Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Cluster Nodes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Cluster Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Supported Cluster Configurations . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Direct-Attached Cluster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
SAN-Attached Cluster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Other Documents You May Need . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2 Cabling Your Cluster Hardware . . . . . . . . 15
Cabling the Mouse, Keyboard, and Monitor . . . . . . 15
Cabling the Power Supplies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Cabling Your Cluster for Public and Private
Networks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Cabling the Public Network . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Cabling the Private Network . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
NIC Teaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Cabling the Storage Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Cabling Storage for Your Direct-Attached
Cluster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Cabling Storage for Your SAN-Attached
Cluster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

4Contents
3 Preparing Your Systems for
Clustering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Cluster Configuration Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Installation Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Installing the Fibre Channel HBAs. . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Installing the Fibre Channel HBA Drivers. . . . . . 42
Implementing Zoning on a Fibre Channel
Switched Fabric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Using Zoning in SAN Configurations Containing
Multiple Hosts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Using Worldwide Port Name Zoning . . . . . . . . 43
Installing and Configuring the Shared
Storage System. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Access Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Storage Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Navisphere Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Navisphere Agent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
EMC PowerPath. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Enabling Access Control and Creating
Storage Groups Using Navisphere . . . . . . . . . 49
Configuring the Hard Drives on the Shared
Storage System(s). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Optional Storage Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Updating a Dell/EMC Storage System for
Clustering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Installing and Configuring a Failover Cluster . . . . . . 53

Contents 5
A Troubleshooting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
B Zoning Configuration Form . . . . . . . . . . . 61
C Cluster Data Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

6Contents

Introduction 7
Introduction
A Dell™ Failover Cluster combines specific hardware and software components
to provide enhanced availability for applications and services that are run on the
cluster. A Failover Cluster is designed to reduce the possibility of any single
point of failure within the system that can cause the clustered applications or
services to become unavailable. It is recommended that you use redundant
components like server and storage power supplies, connections between the
nodes and the storage array(s), and connections to client systems or other
servers in a multi-tier enterprise application architecture in your cluster.
This document provides information to configure your Dell/EMC CX4-series
fibre channel storage arrays with one or more Failover Clusters. It provides
specific configuration tasks that enable you to deploy the shared storage for
your cluster.
For more information on deploying your cluster with Microsoft®Windows
Server®2003 operating systems, see the Dell Failover Clusters with Microsoft
Windows Server 2003 Installation and Troubleshooting Guide located on the
Dell Support website at support.dell.com. For more information on
deploying your cluster with Windows Server 2008 operating systems, see the
Dell Failover Clusters with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Installation and
Troubleshooting Guide located on the Dell Support website at
support.dell.com.
For a list of recommended operating systems, hardware components, and
driver or firmware versions for your Dell Failover Cluster, see the Dell Cluster
Configuration Support Matrix on the Dell High Availability website at
www.dell.com/ha.

8Introduction
Cluster Solution
Your cluster implements a minimum of two nodes to a maximum of either
eight nodes (for Windows Server 2003) or sixteen nodes (for Windows Server
2008) and provides the following features:
• 8-Gbps and 4-Gbps Fibre Channel technology
• High availability of resources to network clients
• Redundant paths to the shared storage
• Failure recovery for applications and services
• Flexible maintenance capabilities, allowing you to repair, maintain, or
upgrade a node or storage system without taking the entire cluster offline
Implementing Fibre Channel technology in a cluster provides the following
advantages:
• Flexibility — Fibre Channel allows a distance of up to 10 km between
switches without degrading the signal.
•
Availability — Fibre Channel components use redundant connections
providing multiple data paths and greater availability for clients.
•
Connectivity — Fibre Channel allows more device connections than
Small Computer System Interface (SCSI). Because Fibre Channel devices
are hot-pluggable, you can add or remove devices from the nodes without
taking the entire cluster offline.
Cluster Hardware Requirements
Your cluster requires the following hardware components:
• Cluster nodes
• Cluster storage

Introduction 9
Cluster Nodes
Table 1-1 lists the hardware requirements for the cluster nodes.
NOTE: For more information about supported systems, HBAs and operating system
variants, see the Dell Cluster Configuration Support Matrix on the Dell High
Availability website at www.dell.com/ha.
Table 1-1. Cluster Node Requirements
Component Minimum Requirement
Cluster nodes A minimum of two identical PowerEdge servers are required.
The maximum number of nodes that are supported depend
on the variant of the Windows Server operating system used
in your cluster, and on the physical topology in which the
storage system and nodes are interconnected.
RAM The variant of the Windows Server operating system that is
installed on your cluster nodes determines the minimum
RAM required.
Host Bus Adapter
(HBA) ports
Two Fibre Channel HBAs per node, unless the server employs
an integrated or supported dual-port Fibre Channel HBA.
Where possible, place the HBAs on separate PCI buses to
improve availability and performance.
NICs At least two NICs: one NIC for the public network and
another NIC for the private network.
NOTE: It is recommended that the NICs on each public network
are identical, and that the NICs on each private network are
identical.
Internal disk
controller
One controller connected to at least two internal hard drives
for each node. Use any supported RAID controller or disk
controller.
Two hard drives are required for mirroring (RAID 1) and at
least three are required for disk striping with parity (RAID 5).
NOTE: It is strongly recommended that you use
hardware-based RAID or software-based disk-fault tolerance
for the internal drives.

10 Introduction
Cluster Storage
Table 1-2 lists supported storage systems and the configuration requirements
for the cluster nodes and stand-alone systems connected to the storage systems.
Table 1-3 lists hardware requirements for the storage processor enclosures (SPE),
disk array enclosures (DAE), and standby power supplies (SPS).
NOTE: The DAE-OS is the first DAE enclosure that is connected to the CX4-series
(including all of the storage systems listed above). Core software is preinstalled on
the first five hard drives of the DAE-OS.
Table 1-2. Cluster Storage Requirements
Hardware Components Requirement
Supported storage
systems
One to four supported Dell/EMC storage systems. See
Table 1-3 for specific storage system requirements.
Cluster nodes All nodes must be directly attached to a single storage system
or attached to one or more storage systems through a SAN.
Multiple clusters and
stand-alone systems
Can share one or more supported storage systems. See
"Installing and Configuring the Shared Storage System" on
page 45.
Table 1-3. Dell/EMC Storage System Requirements
Processor
Enclosure
Minimum Storage Possible Storage
Expansion
SPS
CX4-120 One DAE-OS with at
least five and up to 15
hard drives
Up to seven DAE’s with
a maximum of 15 hard
drives each
Two for SPE and
DAE-OS
CX4-240 One DAE-OS with at
least five and up to 15
hard drives
Up to fifteen DAE’s with
a maximum of 15 hard
drives each
Two for SPE and
DAE-OS
CX4-480 One DAE-OS with at
least five and up to 15
hard drives
Up to thirty one DAE’s
with a maximum of 15
hard drives each
Two for SPE and
DAE-OS
CX4-960 One DAE-OS with at
least five and up to 15
hard drives
Up to sixty three DAE’s
with a maximum of 15
hard drives each
Two for SPE and
DAE-OS