Equallogic support

Sorry that your experience with support didn't go as smoothly as you expected.  If you can, please recap your problem and we can see if there is something I can do to help you?

-joe

I didn't have major issues with EQL support but I do agree the support feels from good to quite bad depending on who you're getting on the other side. 1,5 week ago I called for a PSU replacement (prosupport 4h) and got told I would be called back within 30 minutes as everyone was in a meeting.

At first I accepted the answer but than I got kinda pissed.. it's not like a $600 server we're using here and every second we're at risk is one to many. So I called again, 5 minutes later an PSU was dispatched and delivered 2,5 hours later.

When having serious problems just make sure you're talking to an serious engineer. In the perfect world you would be talking to a person who build/programmed the hardware himself and knows everything about it but we do all know such a world doesn't exists ;)

When unhappy about support; contact your account manager if you have one. He can make people run like forrest gump when you want them to ;)

I'm hoping someone could provide hints to help me in troubleshooting this.

We have an old Hyper-V 2016 system that is only seeing the disks of the Dell EqualLogic SAN as "RAW".
However, our old Hyper-V 2008 system could see the data.

Thanks in advance.

Den

Hello Den,

Which Equallogic system do you have as you didn’t state that in your post?  Also, what is the current version of firmware that is on your equallogic?

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Hello, 

Is this part of a cluster?   

 What are the access controls for the volumes on the EQL side?  E.g. are they limited by server IQN name or IP, or just all asterisks?  Which indicates any server can access it.  This condition known as double mounting can destroy the allocation table or partition table.  So when another server mounts it, it shows up as RAW. 

Also, please open a new topic vs. replying to a very old one.  That way others looking for the same solution can more easily find it.   

Thank you. 

 Regards, 

Don 

Hi Sam,

It is an old PS4000 unit.

For firmware:

Control Module: Model 70-0120 Type 8

Boot ROM 8.1.1

Storage Array Firmware v5.25

Enclosure Firmware 02.03

Hi Don,

Yes, it is part of a cluster of two SANs of the same model and revisions.

The partition table does not appear to be corrupt, since the old Hyper-V 2008 could still see the data.

Hello, 

 So this is a Hyper-V cluster then.   I am not sure you can mix 2016 cluster services with 2008 at same time. 

Also OS's don't re-read the partition table often. Typically only at power on or iSCSI login time.  So if they are connected all the time you can re-write the table underneath them and they will continue to function. 

 One option is create a snapshot of the volume and present that to the 2016 server, that also must be running cluster services. Then "add" that snapshot volume to the cluster to see if you can then see the data.  

 MS Cluster services use SCSI3 persistent reservations in order to help manage concurrent access. The prevents other noncluster servers from accessing it.   Also cluster volumes contain meta data on them as well I believe to help identify cluster resources. 

Re: Firmware.  Yes, that is VERY old firmware. From 2012.   So that's not even remotely certified for 2016.  

I did some searching and could not find any documentation on migrating 2008 Hyper-V volumes to 2016. Most seemed to suggest creating new 2016 resource and moving the files or backup / restore to the new 2016 cluster. 

 Regards, 

Don 

Thanks Don.

Sorry for the delayed response (been asked to focus on other urgent projects).

We are not trying to mix Hyper V 2016 and 2008, but trying to deploy Hyper-V 2016 and was having difficulty trying to get Hyper-V 2016 to recognize the EqualLogic SAN.

I referred to our existing Hyper-V 2008 to confirm that the disks are not corrupt.

Hello, 

 No problem.  By "disks" you meant the physical disks aren't corrupt?  

 I suspect a problem is the very old firmware.  

 What specific errors on the EQL side do you see? 

 You are sure you are connecting to the new volumes you created for the cluster? 

 The access control for all volumes should limit them only to specific servers, no use old "*" wildcards in the IP address control for example.  But either IQN, CHAP or specific IP addresses of each server. 

 Regards,

Don

Thanks Don.

I have brought it to a point where the disks are no longer seen as RAW, and the file contents could now be browsed. But the Hyper-V 2016 server sees them as drives, the Hyper-V 2008 server shows them as 'mounted.'

I know that I cannot request for a copy of the latest firmware, since we do no have the support contract anymore, but would it be okay to request a copy of the installer? (So that Hyper-V 2016 is set up close to how the older Hyper-V 2008 servers see the disks.)

Hello, 

 So again it sounds like you are trying to mount the same EQL volumes to your Hyper-V 2016 that are mounted to to the Hyper-V 2008 cluster. 

 Can you create a new volume on the EQL array, then only connect the Hyper-V 2016 cluster to it? 

 Re: "installer"  I assume you mean the host integration toolkit software.  That software like all the bundled EQL software and firmware is licensed by the support contract.  You must have that in order to download and use any of it.   Also, that would not work on such old EQL fiwmare.  Nor does it change how the iSCSI adapter and OS functions. It' improves MPIO performance with multi-member pools and add host software to improve consistency of snasphots and replcation. 

 Regards, 

Don 

Hello, 

 The other limit likely to be your issue is you can't get a contract past 7 years from ship date. 

Regards, 

Don