Dell EMC AX4-5 User manual

Dell/EMC AX4-5 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 potential damage to hardware or loss of data
if instructions are not followed.
WARNING: A WARNING indicates a potential for property damage, personal
injury, or death.
____________________
Information in this document is subject to change without notice.
© 2008-2010 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, 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
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trademarks and trade names other than its own.
January 2010 Rev A01

Contents 3
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Cluster Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Cluster Hardware Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Cluster Nodes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Cluster Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Supported Cluster Configurations . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Direct-Attached Cluster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
SAN-Attached Cluster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
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 . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Cabling the Private Network . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
NIC Teaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Cabling the Storage Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Cabling Storage for Your
Direct-Attached Cluster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Cabling Storage for Your
SAN-Attached Cluster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Cabling a SAN-Attached Cluster to an
AX4-5F Storage System. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

4Contents
3 Preparing Your Systems
for Clustering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Cluster Configuration Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Installation Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Installing the Fibre Channel HBAs. . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Installing the Fibre Channel HBA Drivers. . . . . . 38
Installing EMC PowerPath. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Implementing Zoning on a Fibre Channel
Switched Fabric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Using Worldwide Port Name Zoning . . . . . . . . 39
Installing and Configuring the Shared
Storage System. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Installing Navisphere Storage System
Initialization Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Installing the Expansion Pack Using
Navisphere Express. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Installing Navisphere Server Utility. . . . . . . . . 43
Registering a Server With a Storage System. . . . 43
Assigning the Virtual Disks to Cluster Nodes. . . . 44
Advanced or Optional Storage Features . . . . . . 44
Installing and Configuring a Failover Cluster . . . . . . 46

Contents 5
A Troubleshooting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
B Cluster Data Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
C Zoning Configuration Form . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

6Contents

Introduction 7
Introduction
A 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), connections to client systems or other servers
in a multi-tier enterprise application architecture in your cluster.
This document provides information and specific configuration tasks that
enable you to configure your Microsoft®Windows Server®failover cluster
with Dell/EMC AX4-5F (2 Fibre Channel ports per Storage Processor) or
Dell/EMC AX4-5FX (4 Fibre Channel ports per Storage Processor) storage
array(s).
NOTE: Throughout this document, Dell/EMC AX4-5 refers to Dell/EMC AX4-5F and
Dell/EMC AX4-5FX storage arrays.
NOTE: Throughout this document, Windows Server 2008 refers to Windows Server
2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 operating systems.
For more information on deploying your cluster with Windows Server 2003
operating systems, see the Dell™ Failover Clusters with Microsoft Windows
Server 2003 Installation and Troubleshooting Guide on the Dell Support
website at support.dell.com/manuals. 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 on the Dell Support website at
support.dell.com/manuals.
For a list of recommended operating systems, hardware components, and
driver or firmware versions for your Dell Windows Server Failover Cluster, see
the Dell Cluster Configuration Support Matrices located on the Dell High
Availability Clustering website at dell.com/ha.

8Introduction
Cluster Solution
Your cluster implements a minimum of two node to a maximum of either eight
nodes (for Windows Server 2003) or sixteen nodes (for Windows Server 2008)
clustering and provides the following features:
• 8-Gbps and 4-Gbps Fibre Channel technologies
• 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
SCSI. Because Fibre Channel devices are hot-swappable, you can add or
remove devices from the nodes without bringing down the cluster.
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 Matrices located on the Dell
High Availability Clustering website at dell.com/ha.
Table 1-1. Cluster Node Requirements
Component Minimum Requirement
Cluster nodes A minimum of two identical Dell™ PowerEdge™ servers are
required. The maximum number of nodes that is supported
depends 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
required amount of system RAM.
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 (public and
private networks)
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
Cluster nodes can share access to external storage systems. However, only one
of the nodes can own any redundant array of independent disks (RAID)
volume in the external storage system at any time. Microsoft Cluster Services
(MSCS) controls which node has access to each RAID volume in the shared
storage system.
Table 1-2 lists supported storage systems and the configuration requirements
for the cluster nodes and stand-alone systems connected to the storage
systems.
The storage systems work together with the following hardware components:
• Disk processor enclosure (DPE)—Configured with storage processors that
control the RAID arrays in the storage system and provide storage
functionalities such as snapshots, LUN masking, and remote mirroring.
• Disk array enclosure (DAE)—Provides additional storage and is attached
to the disk processor enclosure.
• Standby power supply (SPS)—Provides backup power to protect the
integrity of the disk processor write cache. The SPS is connected to the
disk processor enclosure
Table 1-2. Cluster Storage Requirements
Hardware Components Requirement
Supported storage
systems
One to four supported Dell/EMC storage systems. For
specific storage system requirements see Table 1-3.
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 using
optional software that is available for your storage system.
See "Installing and Configuring the Shared Storage
System" on page 41.

Introduction 11
Table 1-3 lists hardware requirements for the disk processor enclosures DPE
DAE, and SPS.
NOTE: Ensure that the core software version running on the storage system is
supported by Dell. For specific version requirements, see the Dell Cluster
Configuration Support Matrices located on the Dell High Availability Cluster website
at dell.com/ha.
Supported Cluster Configurations
Direct-Attached Cluster
In a direct-attached cluster, all nodes of the cluster are directly attached to a
single storage system. In this configuration, the RAID controllers (or storage
processors) on the storage systems are connected by cables directly to the
Fibre Channel HBA ports in the nodes.
Figure 1-1 shows a basic direct-attached, single-cluster configuration.
Table 1-3. Dell/EMC Storage System Requirements
Storage
System
Minimum Required
Storage
Possible Storage
Expansion
SPS
AX4-5 1 DPE with at least 4
and up to 12 hard
drives
Up to 3 DAE with a
maximum of 12 hard-
drives each
First is required,
the second SPS is
optional

12 Introduction
Figure 1-1. Direct-Attached, Single-Cluster Configuration
EMC®PowerPath®Limitations in a Direct-Attached Cluster
EMC PowerPath provides failover capabilities and multiple path detection as
well as dynamic load balancing between multiple ports on the same storage
processor. However, direct-attached clusters supported by Dell connect to a
single port on each storage processor in the storage system. Because of the
single port limitation, PowerPath can provide only failover protection, not
load balancing, in a direct-attached configuration.
SAN-Attached Cluster
In a SAN-attached cluster, all of the nodes are attached to a single storage
system or to multiple storage systems through a SAN using redundant switch
fabrics. SAN-attached clusters are superior to direct-attached clusters in
configuration flexibility, expandability, and performance.
Figure 1-2 shows a SAN-attached cluster.
cluster node
private network
public network
cluster node
storage system
Fibre Channel
connections
Fibre Channel
connections

Introduction 13
Figure 1-2. SAN-Attached Cluster
Other Documents You May Need
CAUTION: The safety information that is shipped with your system provides
important safety and regulatory information. Warranty information may be
included within this document or as a separate document.
NOTE: To configure Dell blade server modules in a Dell PowerEdge cluster, see the
Using Dell Blade Servers in a Dell PowerEdge High Availability Cluster document
located on the Dell Support website at support.dell.com/manuals.
• The Rack Installation Guide included with your rack solution describes
how to install your system into a rack.
• The
Getting Started Guide provides an overview of initially setting up your
system.
• The
Dell Failover Clusters with Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Installation
and Troubleshooting Guide
provides more information on deploying your
cluster with the Windows Server 2003 operating system.
• The
Dell Failover Clusters with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Installation
and Troubleshooting Guide
provides more information on deploying your
cluster with the Windows Server 2008 operating system.
cluster node cluster node
private network
Fibre Channel
connections
storage system
Fibre Channel
switch
Fibre Channel
switch
public network
Fibre Channel
connections

14 Introduction
•The Dell Cluster Configuration Support Matrices provides a list of
recommended operating systems, hardware components, and driver or
firmware versions for your Dell Windows Server Failover Cluster.
• The HBA documentation provides installation instructions for the HBAs.
• Systems management software documentation describes the features,
requirements, installation, and basic operation of the software.
• Operating system documentation describes how to install (if necessary),
configure, and use the operating system software.
• The Dell PowerVault™ tape library documentation provides information
for installing, troubleshooting, and upgrading the tape library.
• The EMC PowerPath documentation that came with your HBA kit(s) and
Dell/EMC Storage Enclosure User’s Guides.
• Updates are sometimes included with the system to describe changes to
the system, software, and/or documentation.
NOTE: Always read the updates first because they often supersede
information in other documents.
• Release notes or readme files may be included to provide last-minute
updates to the system or documentation, or advanced technical reference
material intended for experienced users or technicians.

Cabling Your Cluster Hardware 15
Cabling Your Cluster Hardware
NOTE: To configure Dell blade server modules in a Dell™ PowerEdge™ cluster, see
the Using Dell Blade Servers in a Dell PowerEdge High Availability Cluster
document located on the Dell Support website at support.dell.com/manuals.
Cabling the Mouse, Keyboard, and Monitor
When installing a cluster configuration in a rack, you must include a switch
box to connect the mouse, keyboard, and monitor to the nodes. See the
documentation included with your rack for instructions on cabling each
node’s connections to the switch box.
Cabling the Power Supplies
Refer to the documentation for each component in your cluster solution to
ensure that the specific power requirements are satisfied.
The following guidelines are recommended to protect your cluster solution
from power-related failures:
• For nodes with multiple power supplies, plug each power supply into a
separate AC circuit.
• Use uninterruptible power supplies (UPS).
• For some environments, consider having backup generators and power
from separate electrical substations.
Figure 2-1, and Figure 2-2 illustrate recommended methods for power cabling
for a cluster solution consisting of two PowerEdge systems and two storage
systems. To ensure redundancy, the primary power supplies of all the
components are grouped onto one or two circuits and the redundant power
supplies are grouped onto a different circuit.

16 Cabling Your Cluster Hardware
Figure 2-1. Power Cabling Example With One Power Supply in the PowerEdge Systems
and One Standby Power Supply (SPS) in an AX4-5 Storage System
redundant power
supplies on one AC
power strip (or on one
AC PDU [not shown])
primary power
supplies on one AC
power strip (or on one
AC PDU [not shown])
NOTE: This illustration is intended only to demonstrate the power
distribution of the components.
SPS

Cabling Your Cluster Hardware 17
Figure 2-2. Power Cabling Example With Two Power Supplies in the PowerEdge
Systems and Two SPS(s) in an AX4-5 Storage System
Cabling Your Cluster for Public and Private
Networks
The network adapters in the cluster nodes provide at least two network
connections for each node, as described in Table 2-1.
NOTE: To configure Dell blade server modules in a Dell PowerEdge cluster, see the
Using Dell Blade Servers in a Dell PowerEdge High Availability Cluster document
located on the Dell Support website at support.dell.com/manuals.
A
B
A
B
0 Fibre 1 Fibre 0 Fibre 1 Fibre
A
B
A
B
primary power supplies
on one AC power strip
(or on one AC PDU [not
shown])
redundant power supplies
on one AC power strip (or
on one AC PDU [not
shown])

18 Cabling Your Cluster Hardware
Figure 2-3 shows an example of cabling in which dedicated network adapters
in each node are connected to each other (for the private network) and the
remaining network adapters are connected to the public network.
Figure 2-3. Example of Network Cabling Connection
Table 2-1. Network Connections
Network Connection Description
Public network All connections to the client LAN.
At least one public network must be configured for
Mixed mode for private network failover.
Private network A dedicated connection for sharing cluster health and
status information only.
cluster node 1 cluster node 2
public network
private network
private
network
adapter
public
network
adapter

Cabling Your Cluster Hardware 19
Cabling the Public Network
Any network adapter supported by a system running TCP/IP may be used to
connect to the public network segments. You can install additional network
adapters to support additional public network segments or to provide
redundancy in the event of a faulty primary network adapter or switch port.
Cabling the Private Network
The private network connection to the nodes is provided by a different
network adapter in each node. This network is used for intra-cluster
communications. Table 2-2 describes two possible private network
configurations.
NOTE: For more information on the supported cable types, see your system or NIC
documentation.
Table 2-2. Private Network Hardware Components and Connections
Method Hardware Components Connection
Network
switch
Gigabit or 10 Gigabit
Ethernet network adapters
and switches
Depending on the hardware, connect
the CAT5e or CAT6 cables, the
multimode optical cables with LC
(Local Connector) connectors, or the
twin-ax cables from the network
adapters in the nodes to a switch.
Point-to-Point
(two-node
clusters only)
Gigabit or 10 Gigabit
Ethernet network adapters
with RJ-45 connectors
Connect a standard CAT5e or CAT6
Ethernet cable between the network
adapters in both nodes.
10 Gigabit Ethernet
network adapters with
SFP+ connectors
Connect a twin-ax cable between the
network adapters in both nodes.
Optical Gigabit or 10
Gigabit Ethernet network
adapters with LC
connectors
Connect a multi-mode optical cable
between the network adapters in both
nodes.

20 Cabling Your Cluster Hardware
Using Dual-Port Network Adapters
You can configure your cluster to use the public network as a failover for
private network communications. If dual-port network adapters are used, do
not use both ports simultaneously to support both the public and private
networks.
NIC Teaming
NIC teaming combines two or more NICs to provide load balancing and fault
tolerance. Your cluster supports NIC teaming, but only in a public network;
NIC teaming is not supported in a private network.
You should use the same brand of NICs in a team, and you cannot mix brands
of teaming drivers.
Cabling the Storage Systems
This section provides information for connecting your cluster to a storage
system in a direct-attached configuration, or to one or more storage systems
in a SAN-attached configuration.
Cabling Storage for Your Direct-Attached Cluster
NOTE: Ensure that the management port on each storage processor is connected
to the storage server with the management station, using an Ethernet network
cable.
A direct-attached cluster configuration consists of redundant Fibre Channel
host bus adapter (HBA) ports cabled directly to a Dell/EMC storage system.
Direct-attached configurations are self-contained and do not share any
physical resources with other server or storage systems outside of the cluster.
Figure 2-4 shows an example of a direct-attached, single cluster configuration
with redundant HBA ports installed in each cluster node.