Symmetrix Core Curriculum for Engineering

Storage Provisioning With EMC Symmetrix Auto-provisioning Groups using SYMCLI

Hands-on Activity

August 2009

Autoprovisioning Groups Hands-on Activity Using SYMCLI

INFORMATION ABOUT THIS HANDS-ON ACTIVITY:

This activity is designed to provide hands-on experience working with the new Auto-provisioning feature of the Symmetrix V-Max, which significantly reduces the complexity in provisioning storage. This activity was designed for a specific lab environment; if you are performing this exercise in other environments, minor adjustments to the steps presented may be required.

As part of the effort to continuously improve and enhance the performance and capabilities of the Symmetrix product line, EMC periodically releases new versions of its hardware and software, or qualifies various operating systems interoperability with Symmetrix functionality. Therefore, some functions described in this procedure may not be supported by all revisions of the software or hardware you currently have in use, including your host operating system. For the most up-to-date information on specific requirements concerning your host environment status and storage system, refer to the E-Lab Interoperability Navigator on Powerlink.

Copyright 2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Published August 25, 2009 EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice. THE INFORMATION IN THIS PUBLICATION IS PROVIDED "AS IS." EMC CORPORATION MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND WITH RESPECT TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PUBLICATION, AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Use, copying, and distribution of any EMC software described in this publication requires an applicable software license. For the most up-to-date listing of EMC product names, see EMC Corporation Trademarks on EMC.com. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners.

Copyright 2009

EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Page 2

Autoprovisioning Groups Hands-on Activity Using SYMCLI

Table of Contents:
Introduction Lab Environment 1. Log in to a local system and connect to the remote lab environment 2. Verify that Solutions Enabler is installed and the Management server is connected to a Symmetrix 3. Rebuild the SYMAPI database 4. Gather information required to perform provisioning 5. Create a Storage Group 6. Create a Port Group 7. Create an Initiator Group 8. Create a Masking View 9. Verify that the Test Server has access to the devices created 10. Provision additional devices and make them available to your Test Server 11. Clean up the system

References: Storage Provisioning with EMC Symmetrix Auto-provisioning Groups Technical Note

Copyright 2009

EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Page 3

Autoprovisioning Groups Hands-on Activity Using SYMCLI

Introduction: Storage provisioning requires that a number of steps be performed on the host, SAN, and storage system. On the storage system, steps include device creation, mapping of the devices to front-end director ports, and masking the devices to each host-bus adapter (HBA) found on each server. While the process is not difficult, provisioning storage can be cumbersome because it is a multi-step process, and it must be performed for each server and for each HBA. With the Symmetrix V-Max, Enginuity 5874 and Solutions Enabler V7.0, there is a new approach to storage provisioning referred to as Auto-provisioning Groups. This approach reduces the time it takes to provision storage initially and greatly simplifies the process of adding additional capacity to a host later on. Auto-provisioning Groups also simplifies the process of changing connectivity by adding or removing HBAs and/or front-end ports. The core concept of Auto-provisioning Groups is a logical grouping of related initiators, front-end ports, and storage devices and the creation of views that associates storage devices to front-end ports and initiators by performing the necessary device mapping and masking in a single operation. The main components of Auto-provisioning Groups can be seen in the following illustration:

An Initiator Group contains all HBAs within a single server, or in the case of a cluster such as VMware or Oracle RAC, all servers that share access to the same storage. A Port Group contains one or more front-end directors, and a Storage Group contains all devices used by an application, server, or cluster of servers. When a Masking View is created, the required mapping and masking is performed automatically. Once a Masking View is created, re-provisioning (the process of adding additional capacity) is performed by adding additional devices to the Storage Group. As devices are added, the Masking View is automatically updated to reflect the change and the required mapping and masking operations are performed without human
Copyright 2009 EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Page 4

Autoprovisioning Groups Hands-on Activity Using SYMCLI

intervention. Similarly, modifying connectivity is performed by simply adding or removing HBAs to/from the Initiator Group and/or by adding or removing ports to/from the Port Group. Lab Environment for this Activity: To perform this hands-on activity, you will be accessing system resources that physically reside in the Education labs in Franklin, Massachusetts. Connectivity is provided using the EMC Virtual Data Center, which provides full access using Remote Desktop Connection. The test environment used consists of the following: A W2K3 Management Server with Solutions Enabler 7.0 installed. A Test Server with two Emulex HBAs and EMC PowerPath installed and configured. (The SAN fabric is zoned to allow the HBAs to see a minimum of two ports on a Symmetrix V-Max.) A Symmetrix V-Max with a number of devices created but not mapped or masked.

The following diagram illustrates the environment that will be used to perform this activity.

Copyright 2009

EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Page 5

Autoprovisioning Groups Hands-on Activity Using SYMCLI

1. Connect to the EMC Virtual Data Center and log on to the appropriate servers. a. Log in to a local computer and open Internet Explorer. b. Point the browser to the following URL: https://vdc.emc.com. c. Log in to the Virtual Data Center using the following credentials: (Replace XX with your assigned session number) User ID: SSCXX Password: _______

d. After successful authentication, an Applications page will be displayed that shows a list of available systems. Double-click on the link to your assigned Windows Management Server. This will launch a Remote Desktop Connection session.

Copyright 2009

EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Page 6

Autoprovisioning Groups Hands-on Activity Using SYMCLI

e. Log in to the Management Server using the following credentials: (Replace xx with your assigned session number) User ID: sccuserxx Password: sccuserxx f. Return to the Applications page and double-click on the link to your assigned Windows Test Server. This will launch a Remote Desktop Connection session to the Test Server.

g. Log in to the Test Server using the following credentials: (Replace xx with your assigned session number) User ID: sccuserxx Password: sccuserxx

Copyright 2009

EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Page 7

Autoprovisioning Groups Hands-on Activity Using SYMCLI

2. Verify that Solutions Enabler is installed and the Management Server is connected to a Symmetrix. a. Open a Command Prompt by double-clicking on the icon on the desktop.

b. Determine if Solutions Enabler is installed and the release level. Enter the following command: symcli The output should be similar to what is displayed below if Solutions Enabler is installed and at the minimum level of 7.0.

c. Verify that the management host is connected to the Symmetrix. Because Solutions Enabler uses in-band communication, at least one device must be visible to be use as a gatekeeper device in order to pass commands from the management server to the Symmetrix. Execute the following command to perform a SCSI inquiry of all connected devices. syminq Note: syminq will display information about all attached SCSI devices, including nonSymmetrix devices. The output should be similar to what is displayed below.

Copyright 2009

EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Page 8

Autoprovisioning Groups Hands-on Activity Using SYMCLI

3. Rebuild the SYMAPI database. When executing a SYMCLI command, some information is referenced from a database stored on the local host known as the SYMAPI Database. Because this is a lab environment, and the configuration changes often, the database may not be consistent so before we begin, delete the database and rebuild it. i) Using Windows Explorer, delete the file: C:\Program Files\EMC\SYMAPI\db\symabi_db.bin Note: In a customer environment, deleting the database would not be appropriate as it often contains user defined information such as device groups. ii) Rebuild the SYMAPI Database by rediscovering the Symmetrix using the following command. symcfg discover symcfg list The output will be similar to what is displayed below:

b. Note the last two digits of the Symmetrix ID. This is known as the SID and will be used in the execution of subsequent commands. SID=__________

Copyright 2009

EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Page 9

Autoprovisioning Groups Hands-on Activity Using SYMCLI

4. Gather information needed to configure Auto-provisioning. Three pieces of information are required for Auto-provisioning: the Worldwide Names (WWN) of the host bus adapters (HBAs) on the test server, the front-end director and port numbers for which the HBAs have logged in, and a list of devices that will be made available to the host. In this step, you will be gathering this information. a. Gather the WWN of the HBAs on the Test Server. There are several different tools that can be used to obtain the WWNs of the HBAs in a server, including the Emulex utility HBAanyware. For this exercise, we will be using the command syminq hba. On your assigned Test Server, open a command prompt and execute the following command: syminq hba Verify that the HBA ports are online and record the WWNs for all online ports found. (Refer to the following screen.)

Record the WWNs for the operational ports found. Note: Your test host may have more than two operational HBAs. Port WWN: ___________________________________________ Port WWN: ___________________________________________
Copyright 2009 EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Page 10

Autoprovisioning Groups Hands-on Activity Using SYMCLI

b. Identify the Symmetrix front-end ports that the HBAs noted above are logged into. (If the HBAs are logged into an FA port, this indicates that they are connected to the fabric and are zoned correctly.) On your assigned Management Server, execute the following command. symaccess sid <SymmID> list logins Below is an example of the command output. Note the Logged in status for the WWNs of the HBAs identified above.

Record the FA director and port information identified. Front-end director __________ Port _____ Front-end director __________ Port _____

Copyright 2009

EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Page 11

Autoprovisioning Groups Hands-on Activity Using SYMCLI

c. Identify four (4) RAID-5 devices that are currently unmapped. The following is the command that could be used and an example of the output. symdev sid <SymmID> list noport raid5

Record the device numbers chosen. Device:_________ Device:_________ Device:_________ Device:_________ 5. Create a Storage Group. A storage group is a logical grouping of devices that are used together. a. Use the following command to create a storage group that includes the four devices identified in step 4c. above. Specify a descriptive name for the group. Following the command is an example of the output. symaccess -sid sid <SymmID> create -name testserver_SG -type storage devs <Dev list>

Copyright 2009

EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Page 12

Autoprovisioning Groups Hands-on Activity Using SYMCLI

b. Verify that the Storage Group was created. The following is an example of the command and the output. symaccess sid <SymmID> show testserver_SG type storage

6. Create a Port Group. A port group is a logical grouping of related front-end director ports. a. Use the following command to create a port group that includes the ports identified previously that the HBAs on the Test Server have logged into. The ports were identified in step 4b. above. Specify a descriptive name. Following the command is an example of the output. symaccess sid <SymmID> create -name testserver_PG -type Port -dirport <dir:port,dir:port>

b. Verify that the port group was created. The following is an example of the command and the output. symaccess sid <SymmID> show testserver_PG type Port

Copyright 2009

EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Page 13

Autoprovisioning Groups Hands-on Activity Using SYMCLI

7. Create an Initiator Group. An initiator group is a logical grouping of related HBAs. An initiator group typically contains all HBAs used by an application, a server, or cluster of servers. a. Use the following commands to create an Initiator group and add the WWNs of the HBAs on your assigned test server. The WWNs were identified in step 4a. above. Following the command is an example of the output. symaccess sid <SymmID> create -name Testserver_IG -type initiator -wwn <WWN of first HBA> symaccess sid <SymmID> add -name Testserver_IG -type initiator -wwn <WWN of second HBA>

b. Verify that the Initiator Group was created. The following is an example of the command and the output: symaccess sid <SymmID> show testserver_IG type Initiator

Copyright 2009

EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Page 14

Autoprovisioning Groups Hands-on Activity Using SYMCLI

8. Create a Masking View. A masking view associates the devices in the storage group with the ports in the port group and the initiators in the initiator group. When a masking view is created, the mapping and masking operations required to make the devices in a storage group available to the HBAs in an initiator group, through the ports in a port group is performed automatically. a. Use the following commands to create a masking view using the previously created initiator group, port group, and storage group. Following the command is an example of the output. symaccess sid <SymmID> create view -name testserver_View -sg testserver_SG -pg testserver_PG -ig testserver_IG

b. Verify that the masking view was created. The following is an example of the command and the output. Notice the view shows the full end-to-end view including the initiators, ports and devices as well is the Dynamic LUN Addresses that were assigned. symaccess sid <SymmID> show view testserver_view

Copyright 2009

EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Page 15

Autoprovisioning Groups Hands-on Activity Using SYMCLI

9. Verify the Test Server has access to the four devices identified in step 5d. a. Log into the Test Server if you have not already done so. b. Scan for hardware changes. i) Right-click on the My Computer icon on the desktop and select Manage. ii) Right-click on the Device Manager icon. iii) Right-click on the Disk drives icon and select Scan for hardware changes. (Refer to the following screen.)

c. Open a command prompt and run the syminq command. The devices in the storage group should be available to your Test Server. Following the command is an example of the output. syminq

Copyright 2009

EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Page 16

Autoprovisioning Groups Hands-on Activity Using SYMCLI

10. Provision additional devices to your Test Server. Once a masking view has been created, provisioning additional devices to a server is simply a matter of adding new devices to the storage group. When devices are added to a storage group, any associated masking views are updated and the required mapping and masking is performed automatically. a. Identify four (4) additional RAID-5 devices that are currently unmapped. The following is the command that could be used and an example of the output. symdev sid <SymmID> list noport raid5

Record the device numbers chosen. Device:_________ Device:_________ Device:_________ Device:_________ b. Add the four additional devices to storage group you created previously for your assigned test server. The following is the command that could be used and an example of the output. symaccess sid <SymmID> name Testserver_SG type add devs <Dev list>

c. Verify that the masking view was updated to reflect the additional devices. The following is the command that could be used and an example of the output. symaccess sid <SymmID> show view testserver_view

Copyright 2009

EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Page 17

Autoprovisioning Groups Hands-on Activity Using SYMCLI

d. On the Test Server, again scan for hardware changes. i) Right-click on the My Computer icon on the desktop and select Manage. ii) Right-click on the Device Manager icon. iii) Right-click on the Disk drives icon and select Scan for hardware changes. (Refer to the following screen.)

Copyright 2009

EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Page 18

Autoprovisioning Groups Hands-on Activity Using SYMCLI

e. In a command prompt window on the test server, run the syminq command. The devices you just added to the storage group should now be available to your Test Server.

11. Clean up system. We greatly appreciate your help in returning the systems to the state they were in prior to the start of this exercise in preparation for the next participant. Note: If you are proceeding with the exercises on Virtual LUN, Virtual Provisioning or other exercises that require host connectivity, skip this cleanup step and proceed with those exercises before returning to perform this step. a. On the Management Server, delete the masking view. This will delete the masking entries and, if the unmap flag is used, will also unmap the devices from the ports in the port group that is associated with the view. The following is the command that could be used and an example of the output. symaccess sid <SymmID> delete view name Testserver_View unmap

b. Reboot the test server to clean up the removed devices.

Copyright 2009

EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Page 19

Autoprovisioning Groups Hands-on Activity Using SYMCLI

c. Delete the storage group for the Test Server. Because the storage group still has devices in it, use the force option. The following is the command that could be used and an example of the output. symaccess sid <SymmID> delete name Testserver_SG type storage -force

d. Delete the port group for the Test Server. Because the port group still has front-end ports in it, we will use the force option. The following is the command that could be used and an example of the output. symaccess sid <SymmID> delete name Testserver_PG type port force

Copyright 2009

EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Page 20

Autoprovisioning Groups Hands-on Activity Using SYMCLI

e. Delete the Initiator group for the Test Server. Because the initiator group still has HBAs in it, we will use the force option. The following is the command that could be used and an example of the output. symaccess sid <SymmID> delete name Testserver_IG type initiator force

f. Verify that the devices are no longer available to the Test Server. Log back into the test server and in a command prompt window, run the syminq command. The devices should no longer be available.

This completes the hands-on activity on Auto-provisioning Groups. Thank you for participating. Your feedback is appreciated.

Copyright 2009

EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Page 21