VxVM fileserver

I finally migrated riemann (my Dell Precision 610 /w 1GB of memory and 2x866MHz PIII Xeons processors running Solaris 10 6/06) to laplace, which is a Sun Ultra 2 with 2x300MHz UltraSPARC-II procs and 1.5GB of memory. riemann only had a single, 73GB disk with an /export ZFS slice, and now that I've got my A5200 in, I figured I would carve some of it for laplace to be the new fileserver. Originally, I had planned to go with ZFS, but my socal fibre HBAs are not supported by MPXIO, so that leaves no possibility of multi-pathing, so VxVM seemed like the logical choice.

Unfortunately, my VxVM media (version 4.0) does not support Solaris 10. I decided to throw Solaris 9 9/05 on laplace. Upon installing the latest patch cluster, VxVM, and the latest VxVM 4.0 maintenance pack, I created a 6-disk volume, which equates to ~ 100GB of space -- plenty for my fileserving needs. VxVM's dynamic multi-pathing had no trouble seeing all the paths to the array, and multi-pathing "just works" (TM). I then allocated another 6 disks to the disk group for mirroring, so that leaves me with 10 disks to play around with on the A5200.

Solaris 9 and VxVM 4.0 seem to be doing an adequate job -- definitely an improvement over riemann, and DMP rocks. :-)

# vxprint
Disk group: rootdg

TY NAME         ASSOC        KSTATE   LENGTH   PLOFFS   STATE    TUTIL0  PUTIL0
dg rootdg       rootdg       -        -        -        -        -       -

dm rootdg01     c2t53d0s2    -        35365968 -        -        -       -
dm rootdg02     c2t54d0s2    -        35365968 -        -        -       -
dm rootdg03     c2t55d0s2    -        35365968 -        -        -       -
dm rootdg04     c2t56d0s2    -        35365968 -        -        -       -
dm rootdg05     c2t57d0s2    -        35365968 -        -        -       -
dm rootdg06     c2t58d0s2    -        35365968 -        -        -       -
dm rootdg07     c2t37d0s2    -        35365968 -        -        -       -
dm rootdg08     c2t38d0s2    -        35365968 -        -        -       -
dm rootdg09     c2t39d0s2    -        35365968 -        -        -       -
dm rootdg10     c2t40d0s2    -        35365968 -        -        -       -
dm rootdg11     c2t41d0s2    -        35365968 -        -        -       -
dm rootdg12     c2t42d0s2    -        35365968 -        -        -       -

v  exportvol    fsgen        ENABLED  212195328 -       ACTIVE   -       -
pl exportvol-01 exportvol    ENABLED  212195328 -       ACTIVE   -       -
sd rootdg01-01  exportvol-01 ENABLED  35365968 0        -        -       -
sd rootdg04-01  exportvol-01 ENABLED  35365808 35365968 -        -       -
sd rootdg02-01  exportvol-01 ENABLED  35365968 0        -        -       -
sd rootdg05-01  exportvol-01 ENABLED  35365808 35365968 -        -       -
sd rootdg03-01  exportvol-01 ENABLED  35365968 0        -        -       -
sd rootdg06-01  exportvol-01 ENABLED  35365808 35365968 -        -       -
pl exportvol-02 exportvol    ENABLED  212195328 -       ACTIVE   -       -
sd rootdg07-01  exportvol-02 ENABLED  35365968 0        -        -       -
sd rootdg10-01  exportvol-02 ENABLED  35365808 35365968 -        -       -
sd rootdg08-01  exportvol-02 ENABLED  35365968 0        -        -       -
sd rootdg11-01  exportvol-02 ENABLED  35365808 35365968 -        -       -
sd rootdg09-01  exportvol-02 ENABLED  35365968 0        -        -       -
sd rootdg12-01  exportvol-02 ENABLED  35365808 35365968 -        -       -
# vxdmpadm listctlr all
CTLR-NAME       ENCLR-TYPE      STATE      ENCLR-NAME
=====================================================
c0              Disk            ENABLED      Disk
c2              SENA            ENABLED      SENA0
c1              SENA            ENABLED      SENA0

(c1 and c2 are the two HBAs on laplace)

# df -h
Filesystem             size   used  avail capacity  Mounted on
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0       32G   2.5G    29G     8%    /
/proc                    0K     0K     0K     0%    /proc
mnttab                   0K     0K     0K     0%    /etc/mnttab
fd                       0K     0K     0K     0%    /dev/fd
swap                   1.8G    48K   1.8G     1%    /var/run
dmpfs                  1.8G     0K   1.8G     0%    /dev/vx/dmp
dmpfs                  1.8G     0K   1.8G     0%    /dev/vx/rdmp
swap                   1.8G    64K   1.8G     1%    /tmp
/dev/vx/dsk/rootdg/exportvol
                       101G    21G    75G    22%    /export

Enterprise 4500 arrival

I was really anxious when the freight company delivered the E4500 yesterday at about roughly 4PM. The size of the box on the pallet wasn't too bad, and after removing the box that covered the pallet, I was surprised by the size of the E4500, which is quite small. I was really in for a shock, though, when I picked it up -- it felt like every bit of the 216lbs the shipping quote listed it as. Fortunately, I was able to get a neighbor over to help me move it in from the garage to my office with relative ease.

I figured it would be advantageous to give it some power and let it sit for an hour or so to get adjusted, afterall, it does have a 1Kw input power rating. After that, I proceeded to throw it into diagnostic mode by turning the key (yes, it uses a key for power and administration) to the "diagnostic" position and then powered on. The diagnostic level I had it at didn't take too long to run (roughly, about 10 minutes), and all tests checked out OK. With all of that out of the way, I proceeded to attach the A5200 to it and power it on to do a Jumpstart of Solaris Express b51a.

More pictures can be found on Flickr.

A5200 delivered

After ordering an A5200 off of eBay from Gemini Digital Products (Thanks guys for the great pricing!), Fedex finally delivered it today. Initially, I thought Fedex had lost the package, as they weren't sure if it was on a truck or somewhere else; the tracking information indicated it was on a truck yesterday for delivery, but it wasn't delivered, so I was quite worried.

After cutting open the box and removing the foam, I proceeded to remove all of the drives from the A5200, hoping this would make it a bit lighter. Unfortunately, it didn't really make that much of a difference and it was still ridicuously heavy, but I managed to get it from the garage into my office with a lot of effort on my part.

The A5200 is a lot larger than I expected, and it feels a lot more solid as a whole than the D1000 I also happen to have. The particular unit I purchased only came with two GBICs, so I'll eventually want to purchase two more so I can multi-path properly. It also happens to have a touch-screen for administration and maintenance on the front, where one can modify drive paths, spin-down the drives for hot-swapping, check the status of the GBICs, and the temperature on each of the drives. Overall, it's fairly quiet and I'm not feeling a lot of heat being output, but we'll see once I start working with the drives. Because my SC-SC cables aren't in yet, I've been unable to attach it to anything, but hopefully, those will be in soon.

You can see the rest of the A5200 pictures on Flickr.