[Openib-windows] Windows SRP multipathing

[Andrey Slepuhin]

Dear Yossi,

I have one 2-port PCI-X HCA in each of 4 cluster nodes. Different HCA 
ports are connected to two different IB subnets managed by Silverstorm 
InfinIO 5000 switches.
The switches are connected to different FC controllers on HP MSA1500cs  
storage using IB-FC gateway (Silverstorm VFx module). On the VFx module 
I mapped FC target to both IOCs. If I will map it only to one IOC, I 
will see each logical disc 2 times instead of 4, but there will be two 
SRP miniport drivers in Windows device manager marked by exclamation sign.
Please note that I have 2 separate subnets. Should I connect the IB 
switches together to have a single subnet?

Regarding the disks: They are writable and they are working fine, but if 
I map a disk to the certain drive letter, this drive will be accessible 
only while the appropriate path is working.

HP storage has 2 active-active controllers, so the host can choose any 
path to access the storage. They have MPIO-based MSD drivers and the 
management software that allows to choose the primary and the failover 
paths, but this software just does not see any array devices if I'm 
using SRP as a SCSI driver. The same for array management utility: I can 
not update the firmware and configure logical volumes on the storage if 
I'm working through SRP driver (I was forced to plug QLogic 2340 HBA 
into one node to do these tasks).

Best regards,
Andrey


Yossi Leybovich wrote:
> Hi
>
> First I build new binaries base on revision 566.
> I hope we will post it to the web early next week.
> Note that the build include fix to blue screen when 2 HCA on the same
> host connected to the same storage.
>
> WinIB does support multipath but only between ports of the same HCA.
> Mean if you connect both ports of the HCA to the storage they will
> appear as one controller and switch if one port fail.
>
> We just now started to look at the MPIO DDK and I hope we will be able
> to support it.
>
> Can you describe the connectivity of your network ?
> Does the multiple paths is feature in the eHP storage ? Can you disable
> it ?
> What is the problem with multiple disks instances ? Cannot you write to
> the disks ?
>
> >From my experience with Enginio storage I just disable their fail over
> feature and I did not see the multiple disks.
>
> I hope that in the coming weeks we will be able to support MPIO.
> Thakx
> Yossi 
>
>
>
>   
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: openib-windows-bounces at openib.org 
>> [mailto:openib-windows-bounces at openib.org] On Behalf Of 
>> Andrey Slepuhin
>> Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2006 10:25 PM
>> To: Tzachi Dar
>> Cc: openib-windows at openib.org
>> Subject: Re: [Openib-windows] Windows SRP multipathing
>>
>> Currently I'm running build 1.0.0.506.
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Andrey
>>
>> Tzachi Dar wrote:
>>     
>>> What version of openib stack are you using?
>>> As far as I can tell there have been many changes in this area from 
>>> the last build that openib has made.
>>> (this means that you will probably have to update your binaries).
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>> Tzachi
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: openib-windows-bounces at openib.org 
>>>> [mailto:openib-windows-bounces at openib.org] On Behalf Of Andrey 
>>>> Slepuhin
>>>> Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2006 4:13 PM
>>>> To: openib-windows at openib.org
>>>> Subject: [Openib-windows] Windows SRP multipathing
>>>>
>>>> Dear folks,
>>>>
>>>> We have 4-node cluster system using 2 QLogic (Silverstorm) InfinIO 
>>>> 5000 switches, HP DL385 servers and HP MSA1500cs storage. 
>>>>         
>> The cluster 
>>     
>>>> is working under MS Windows Server 2003 x64. We successfully 
>>>> installed IB stack including SRP drivers, and the logical disks on 
>>>> the storage are visible on the cluster nodes. The problem is that 
>>>> each disk is encountered 4 times due to the multiple 
>>>>         
>> paths. We tried 
>>     
>>>> HP DSM driver for Microsoft MPIO but unfortunately it 
>>>>         
>> doesn't work - 
>>     
>>>> it seems that the driver expects only QLogic and Emulex FC 
>>>>         
>> HBAs. Does 
>>     
>>>> anybody have an experience with IB SRP multipathing on 
>>>>         
>> Windows? Any 
>>     
>>>> help will be much appreciated.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks in advance,
>>>> Andrey Slepuhin,
>>>> Head of Cluster Solutions Center,
>>>> T-Platforms
>>>>
>>>> http://www.t-platforms.ru/english
>>>> tel.: +7 495 9565490, +7 495 7440995
>>>> fax:  +7 495 9565415
>>>> mob.: +7 916 1636117
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> openib-windows mailing list
>>>> openib-windows at openib.org
>>>> http://openib.org/mailman/listinfo/openib-windows
>>>>
>>>>     
>>>>         
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