Best practices for troubleshooting

Follow proper power management procedures

You might lose access to volume data if you incorrectly power off all or part of the system.

Always use the management GUI function to power off the system. Only power off or remove a node canister if instructed to do so in a service action.

If you power off an expansion enclosure, you cannot read or write to the drives in that enclosure or to any other expansion enclosure that is attached to it from the SAS ports. Powering off an expansion enclosure can also prevent the control enclosure from flushing all the data that it cached to the RAID arrays.

Back up your data

Back up your system configuration data and volume data.

The storage system backs up your control enclosure configuration data to a file every day. This data is replicated on each control node canister in the system. Download this file regularly to your management workstation to protect the data. This file must be used if there is a serious failure that requires you to restore your system configuration. It is important to back up this file after modifying your system configuration.

Resolve alerts in a timely manner

Your system reports an alert when there is an issue or a potential issue that requires user attention. The system helps resolve these problems through the Recommended Actions option from the Monitoring > Events page in the management GUI.

Complete the recommended actions as quickly as possible after the problem is reported. Your system is designed to be resilient to most single hardware failures. However, if you operate for any period of time with a hardware failure, the possibility increases that a second hardware failure can result in some volume data that is unavailable.

If there are a number of unfixed alerts, fixing any one alert might become more difficult because of the effects of the other alerts.

Keep your software up to date

Check for new code releases and update your code on a regular basis.

This can be done using the management GUI, or by checking the IBM® support website to see if new code releases are available: www.ibm.com/support

The release notes provide information about new function in a release plus any issues that have been resolved. Update your code regularly if the release notes indicate a potential issue.

Keep your system records up to date

Keep good records of the system location, names, and management addresses. Record the location information for your enclosures.

If you have only one system, it is relatively easy to identify the enclosures that make up the system. Identification becomes more difficult when you have multiple systems in your data center and multiple systems in the same rack.

Record the MT-M and serial number of each enclosure. The information can be found on the IBM Standard Asset Tag attached to the left enclosure bezel, which includes a machine-readable data matrix to ISO/IEC 15434.

For each system, record the location of the control enclosure and the location of any expansion enclosures. It is useful to label the enclosures themselves with the system name and the management IP addresses.

Subscribe to support notifications

Subscribe to support notifications so that you are aware of best practices and issues that might affect your system.

Subscribe to support notifications by visiting the IBM support page on the IBM website: http://www.ibm.com/support

By subscribing, you are informed of new and updated support site information, such as publications, hints and tips, technical notes, product flashes (alerts), and downloads.

Know your warranty and maintenance agreement details

If you have a warranty or maintenance agreement, review the details that must be supplied when you call for support.

Support personnel ask for your customer number, machine location, contact details, and the details of the problem.