Chapter 28 HP-AutoRAID

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Chapter 28 HP-AutoRAID

INDEX

The AutoRAID Concept 3

Connection to a Host 3
Administration of the AutoRAID 5
Creating/Deleting a LUN 6
AutoRAID Performance 6

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The AutoRAID Concept

The AutoRAID concept distinguishes from the conventional RAID concepts. With
conventional RAID concepts single dedicated disks are explicitly bound to a RAID group.
You can always say which data resides on wich physical disk module and which RAID level
is used.

If for example you bind four 2GB disks to a RAID5 group, you know that three disks are used
for user data and the fourth disk is used as parity.

AutoRAID is different in the following way:

All disks in the HP AutoRAID array are used.

The maximum available space for user data is derived from the number and size of the disks
modules.
From this overall pool of disk space you create logical units (LUNs) as desired. Don’t confuse
this LUNs with LVM Logical Volumes. For the OS a LUN is nothing but a physical disk.
The AutoRAID mechanism within the array moves the data between two RAID levels
automatically. If there is plenty of free space available then all data is kept in RAID 1/0 Level
(= mirroring). This is the preferred RAID level because the performance/redundancy is
balanced best. As long as not more than the half of the allocatable disk space is used for
LUNs, all data is in RAID1/0 Level.
When creating additional LUNs so that more than 50% of the available space is allocated it is
not possible to keep all data in RAID1/0 Level. The AutoRAID migrates the data from
RAID1/0 to RAID5 smoothly in this case. The data that is used frequently will be kept in
RAID1/0, whereas data that is used less frequently will be migrated to RAID5. A minimum of
10% of available disk space will always be in RAID1/0.
A result of this is that it is no longer possible to determine the underlying disk modules for a
given LUN because potentially ALL disk modules in the array are used.
The AutoRAID disk array is shipped with two controllers (named X and Y). So there are
always two disk device files for each LUN:

cXtYdZ X: instance number of the SCSI host bus adapter

Y: SCSI-ID of the AutoRAID controller
Z: LUN-ID

Its recommended to configure the second device file as alternate link to the LUN in LVM for
redundancy.

Connection to a Host

There are four SCSI connectors at the rear AutoRAID - two for each controller.The following
two connections to the host are possible:

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1) Two host bus adapters (preferred)

AutoRAID Host
Y

2) One host bus adapter (daisy chaining)

AutoRAID Host
Y

After setting up the hardware you need to specify the SCSI-IDs of the X and Y controllers
using the Front Panel:
Navigation with "+" und "-", Selection with Enter
a) Menu then Cntl Changes then SCSI ID
b) For controller X then Enter
c) Choose number then Enter
d) RESET OK? then Enter and Confirm
e) same for controller Y

Active Hot Spare

Active Hot Spare reserves disk space to hold the largest physical disk. If a disk module fails
the Hot Spare can take over. Therefore the lost data does not need to be recalculated from the
checksums and the performance remains stable. HP recommends the use of Active Hot Spare.
Btw. Active Hot Spare is not a dedicated disk like in other disk arrays. The space for Hot
Spare is obtained from all disk modules.

Configuration of Hot Spare using the Front Panel:

a) Menu then Disk Changes then ActivSpare
b) Choose Enable/Disable and then Confirm

It is also recommendedc to enable the AutoInclude feature. If AutoInclude is enabled new

disks modules that are plugged into the array will be automatically configured and used for
RAID1/0.

Configuration of AutoInclude using the Front Panel:

a) Menu then Disk Changes then AutoInclude
b) Choose Enable/Disable and then Confirm

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Administration of the AutoRAID

There are three possible ways to administer the AutoRAID:

1) using the AutoRAID management software (ARMServer)
2) using the front panel of the array
3) using SAM

The ARMServer software is provided through a patch:

PHCO_23261 (or newer) for UX 10.X
PHCO_23262 (or newer) for UX 11.00
PHCO_23263 (or newer) for UX 11.11

All commands are located at /opt/hparray/bin.

The ARMServer daemon can be started directly by invoking /opt/hparray/bin/ARMServer

or by invoking the rc-Script /sbin/init.d/hparray [start|stop] which will be executed
at boot time.

To administer the AutoRAID you need to specify it’s serial number. To obtain the serial
number of all AutoRAIDs that are connected to the system use:
# arraydsp -i
Arrays known to the ARMServer:
Array with S/N: 000000787184

I recommend to store the serial number into an environment variable because it will be used
frequently:
# export ID=000000787184

Use the arraydsp command to gather information about the array. The -a option is used to
display all information:
# arraydsp -a $ID | more
Vendor ID = HP
Product ID = C3586A
Array serial number = 000000787184
----------------------------------------------------
Array State = READY
Server name = hprtdu66
Array type = 3
Mfg. Product Code = IJMTU00000
--- Disk space usage --------------------
Total physical = 14237 MB
Allocated to LUNs = 5196 MB
Used as Active Hot spare = 0 MB
Used by non-included disks = 0 MB
Used for Redundancy = 2973 MB
Unallocated (avail for LUNs) = 6068 MB
-----------------------------------------
...
...

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Creating/Deleting a LUN

1) using ARMServer commands

Create a LUN:
# arraycfg -L <LUN-ID> -a <size in MB> $ID

Delete a LUN (destroys all data):

# arraycfg -L <LUN-ID> -d $ID

2) using the front panel:

navigation with "+" and "-", selection with <Enter>

Create a LUN
a) Menu -> L-Drv. Changes -> Create L-Drv
b) Choose LUN-ID or use default
c) Choose size. The steps are 100MB, 250MB, 500MB, 1GB, 1.5GB ...
d) Confirm

Delete a LUN (destroys all data):

a) Menu -> L-Drv. Changes -> Delete L-Drv
b) Enter LUN-ID
c) Confirm

3) using SAM
Disks and File Systems -> Disk Devices

Create a LUN:
a) Choose controller X or Y
b) Actions -> Disk Array Maintenance -> Bind LUN
c) Specify size -> OK

Delete a LUN (destroys all data):

a) Select LUN from list
b) Actions -> Disk Array Maintenance -> Unbind LUN -> OK

AutoRAID Performance

Question:
“Can i improve the performance of an HP AutoRAID by using controllers X and Y in
parallel?”

Answer:
No - because an AutoRAID LUN is potentially spread across ALL physical disk modules.
There are 4 internal SCSI paths with a maximum of 3 disk modules shared by both
controllers. There is no way to control on what disk module your LUN resides!

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Dual controller configuration is therefor just intended for redundancy (LVM switches IO to
alternate HW path if primary path fails)

AutoRAID

--- ---
| |----D---D---D----| |
| | | |
| |----D---D---D----| |
| X | | Y |
| |----D---D---D----| |
| | | |
| |----D---D---D----| |
--- ---

D: Disk Module

Test configuration is as follows:

D-Class AutoRAID
---- ------
| c0---------t0 |
| | | d4 |
| | | d5 |
| c1---------t2 |
---- ------

/dev/vgtobi
/dev/dsk/c0t0d4
/dev/dsk/c1t2d4 (alternate)
/dev/dsk/c1t2d5
/dev/dsk/c0t0d5 (alternate)

100MB large sequential read is performed.

1) lvol1 is 100MB LUN on c0t0d4:

# time dd if=/dev/vgtobi/rlvol1 of=/dev/null bs=1024k count=100
100+0 records in
100+0 records out

real 12.6
user 0.0
sys 0.6

2) lvol1 is 100MB LUN striped (8K) across c0t0d4 and c1t2d5:

# time dd if=/dev/vgtobi/rlvol1 of=/dev/null bs=1024k count=100
100+0 records in
100+0 records out

real 18.5
user 0.0
sys 0.9

3) lvol1 is 100MB LUN striped (64K) across c0t0d4 and c1t2d5:

# time dd if=/dev/vgtobi/rlvol1 of=/dev/null bs=1024k count=100

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100+0 records in
100+0 records out

real 13.6
user 0.0
sys 0.7

Now change dd block size to strip size (64K)

# time dd if=/dev/vgtobi/rlvol1 of=/dev/null bs=64k count=1600

1600+0 records in
1600+0 records out

real 13.5
user 0.0
sys 1.0

4) lvol1 is 100MB LUN on c0t0d4, lvol2 on 100MB LUN on c1t2d5

two dd's in parallel:

# time dd if=/dev/vgtobi/rlvol1 of=/dev/null bs=1024k count=100

100+0 records in
100+0 records out

real 23.4
user 0.0
sys 0.7

# time dd if=/dev/vgtobi/rlvol2 of=/dev/null bs=1024k count=100

100+0 records in
100+0 records out

real 23.5
user 0.0
sys 0.7

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