SVC Controller Interoperability, Guidelines for Configuring Dell-EMC PowerStore and Unity Systems with SAN Volume Controller and FlashSystem

Content

This portion of the document covers the necessary configuration for Dell-EMC PowerStore and Unity storage systems with an IBM SAN Volume Controller.

Note; iSCSI configuration is not yet supportedF

Note; Initially only 2 nodes of PowerStore are supported by SVC. For future multi appliance cluster support, refer to SSIC notes for the system.

Support models of Dell-EMC PowerStore
Different models of the Dell-EMC PowerStore are supported for use with the IBM SVC,
from SVC levels of; 8.2.1.12, 8.3.1.3, 8.4.0.1

The initial PowerStore family of storage systems support consists of the following models;

 1000T, 1000X, 3000T, 3000X, 5000T, 5000X, 7000T, 7000X, 9000T.

Support firmware levels of Dell-EMC PowerStore
SVC supports starts at, Version 1.0.x firmware.

Support models of Dell-EMC Unity
Different models of the Dell-EMC Unity are supported for use with the IBM SVC.
Models; 380F, 480F, 680F, 880F, 380, 480, 680, 880, 350F, 450F, 550F, 650F, 300F, 400F, 500F, 600F, 300, 400, 500, 600.

Support firmware levels of Dell-EMC Unity
SVC supports starts at, Version 5.0.x firmware

See the following website for specific firmware levels and the supported hardware of a release: -
https://www-03.ibm.com/systems/support/storage/ssic/interoperability.wss

Concurrent maintenance on Dell-EMC PowerStore and Unity.
Concurrent firmware upgrades (NDU) are supported for all PowerStore storage systems according to Dell-EMC PowerStore procedures.

Dell-EMC PowerStore and Unity LUN user interfaces
There is the Dell-EMC PowerStore or Unity Manager for web enabled remote management.

There is also PowerStore or Unity Client CLI access from a software installed host.


Dell-EMC PowerStore and Unity LUN configuration
The storage is provisioned, from the PowerStore or Unity, as LUNs. These appear as managed disks (MDisks) on the SVC. The SVC can use them to create storage pools (MDiskgroups) to provision SVC volumes (VDisks) for use by hosts or for use with tiering.


SVC system recognition
Example; A Dell-EMC PowerStore system under SVC,
# svcinfo lscontroller -delim :

id:controller_name:ctrl_s/n:vendor_id:product_id_low:product_id_high:site_id:site_name

0:controller0:SACD :DellEMC :PowerSto:re ::


LUN Mapping
MDisks greater than 2TB LUNs are supported on SVC. SVC has a maximum LUN size of 1PB.
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/v830x-configuration-limits-and-restrictions-ibm-system-storage-san-volume-controller

The LUN number can be specified on PowerStore and Unity. LUN 0 is recognized by SVC.

LUN IDs
Dell-EMC PowerStore identifies exported Logical Units through
SCSI Identification Descriptor type 3.

The Logical Unit UID is in the form; "6-OUI-VSID".
The 64-bit, NAA IEEE Registered Extended Identifier (NAA=6),
The Dell-EMC PowerStoreIEEE Company OUI ID is "8C-CF-09".
The rest is a vendor-specific ID.

Example; A Dell-EMC PowerStore LUN as an SVC MDisk,
svcinfo lsmdisk -delim : 0

id:0

name:mdisk0

status:online

mode:unmanaged

mdisk_grp_id:

mdisk_grp_name:

capacity:5.0GB

quorum_index:

block_size:512

controller_name:controller0

ctrl_type:4

ctrl_WWNN:58CCF090C9200408

controller_id:4

path_count:2

max_path_count:2

ctrl_LUN_#:0000000000000002

UID:68ccf0980032fa1c017e3dca2c901ee700000000000000000000000000000000

preferred_WWPN:58CCF09049230408

active_WWPN:58CCF09049230408

fast_write_state:empty

raid_status:

raid_level:

redundancy:

strip_size:

spare_goal:

spare_protection_min:

balanced:

tier:tier0_flash

slow_write_priority:

fabric_type:fc

site_id:

site_name:

easy_tier_load:very_high

encrypt:no

distributed:no

drive_class_id:

drive_count:0

stripe_width:0

rebuild_areas_total:

rebuild_areas_available:

rebuild_areas_goal:

dedupe:no

preferred_iscsi_port_id:

active_iscsi_port_id:

replacement_date:

over_provisioned:no

supports_unmap:no

provisioning_group_id:

physical_capacity:5.00GB

physical_free_capacity:5.00GB

write_protected:no

allocated_capacity:0.00MB

effective_used_capacity:5.00GB

Configuring the Dell-EMC PowerStore for IBM SVC.
Settings are default unless specified.

To modify, resize or delete a LUN.
The LUN must be removed from any SVC MDisk group and be in an “unmanaged” state before any modifications on the system.
Note: Make sure the MDisk is unmanaged (removed from any MDisk group) on the SVC Cluster. Then, the system LUN can be deleted or resized on the Dell-EMC PowerStore storage system.
Note: Do not use array expansion on LUNs that are in use by a SAN Volume Controller cluster. To recognize the expansion, the MDisk must be first made unmanaged on the SVC either by migrating or deleting from the MDisk group.

LUN presentation
LUNs are exported through the Dell-EMC PowerStore storage system’s available FC ports. SVC's ports must be registered and assigned to a PowerStore host and the LUNs assigned to this host.

Special LUNs
There are no special considerations to a Logical Unit numbering. LUN 0 is exported where necessary.

System Target Ports
A Dell-EMC PowerStore single appliance storage system can provide up to 16 Fibre Channel ports (8 per node).
SVC has a limit of 16 per controller system.

These ports are seen on the lscontroller view, under a WWNN with the associated WWPNs in a ratio of one to many.

Example; A PowerStore controller under SVC showing a system WWNN with 2 WWPNs zoned,
# svcinfo lscontroller -delim : 0

id:4

controller_name:controller0

WWNN:58CCF090C9200408

mdisk_link_count:40

max_mdisk_link_count:40

degraded:no

vendor_id:DellEMC

product_id_low:PowerSto

product_id_high:re

product_revision:0101

ctrl_s/n:SACD

allow_quorum:yes

fabric_type:fc

site_id:

site_name:

physical_capacity:

WWPN:58CCF09849230408

path_count:40

max_path_count:40

iscsi_port_id:

ip:

WWPN:58CCF09049230408

path_count:40

max_path_count:40

iscsi_port_id:

ip:

LU access model
All Dell-EMC PowerStore system controllers are equal in priority so there is no benefit to using an exclusive set for a specific LU.

LU preferred access port
The Dell-EMC PowerStore and Unity have asymmetric Logical Unit access (ALUA) with preferred and non-optimized paths.
 

Configuration settings for Dell-EMC PowerStore storage system
The configuration for Unity and Powerstore is slightly different.

To configure the host for SVC on Powerstore:

Compute-> Hosts & Host Groups->Add Host

Choose the Operating System as Linux in the Host Detail page.

To configure the host for SVC on Unity:

Hosts-> + -> Host

Refer to the doc Host Configuration and PowerStore for detail

For PowerStore, Initiators are automatically discovered.  Initiators cannot be registered manually.

For Unity, Initiator can be automatically discovered, and also can be registered manually if they are not connected yet.

Failover mode; Active-Active (ALUA)
 

Host group is supported by Powerstore and Unity,

Create a host for each node, and add the host for each SVC node as member of host group.

The setup is straightforward. SVC discovers the system on the fabric without a LUN being presented.

Run svctask detectmdisk for SVC to search the fabric.

To verify, run svctask lsdiscoverystatus. This command displays inactive when completed.


Switch zoning limitations for PowerStore
There are no zoning limitations for Dell-EMC PowerStore.

The Dell-EMC PowerStore system presents itself by default to a SAN Volume Controller as a single WWNN system with a WWPN for each port zoned to the SAN Volume Controller. For example, if a storage system with 4 ports is zoned to the SAN Volume Controller, it appears as a controller with 4 WWPNs. A given logical unit (LU) must be mapped to the SAN Volume Controller through all system controller port using the same logical unit number (LUN).

The system must be separately zoned to SVC ports for exclusivity requirements.

Fabric zoning
Dual Fabrics for robustness is the minimum recommended requirement.

Systems are usually zoned individually. SVC must have unique access to the LUNs.

The Dell-EMC system fabric zone contains all the SVC ports and at least one port from each of the Dell-EMC PowerStore storage systems controllers, for robustness.

System Target Port sharing
The Dell-EMC PowerStore storage system supports LUN masking to enable multiple servers to access separate LUNs through a common controller port.
Explicit masking is to be used with SVC to guarantee the necessary unique LUN access.


Host splitting
Host splitting can be used (hosts connecting to SVC and directly to the System). However, SVC must have sole access to its own LUNs. There can be MPIO interaction considerations, see the SVC support website for details of supported host multipathing.


Sharing the Dell-EMC PowerStore between a host and the SAN Volume Controller.
The sharing of the PowerStore system is supported. SVC does not need exclusive access to the Dell-EMC PowerStore system.
Explicit mapping is required for LUNs exclusive use by SVC.
Note; SVC is not aware of any other use of the system, so performance can be affected.

Quorum disks on Dell-EMC PowerStore
The SAN Volume Controller system can select MDisks that are presented by the Dell-EMC PowerStore storage system as quorum disks. To maintain availability with the cluster, ideally each quorum disk resides on a separate disk subsystem.

Clearing SCSI reservations and registrations
This reservation removal must never be done. SVC LUNs must exclusively be managed by SVC.

Copy Functions
The Dell-EMC PowerStore's replication and snapshot features are not supported by IBM SVC.

Pools
Storage Pools are supported.

Thin Provisioning (Oversubscribing)
Thin LUNs are supported. Care must be taken for the LUNs not to become over allocated or SVC takes the MDisk and its MDiskgroup offline until the MDiskGroup space is increased.

Array increase capacity

The array increase capacity option is supported, but the new capacity is not usable until the MDisk is removed from the SVC storage pool and readded to the SVC storage pool. You might have to migrate data to increase the capacity.

Deduplication

System deduplication can be used but SVC has no knowledge of its use or its performance.