IBM V7000 Expansion Canisters Hardware

Overview explained
by Vudagandla Srikanth Published April 13, 2017 Updated April 20, 2017

As the below figure shows, two 12 Gbps SAS ports are side by side on the
canister of every enclosure. They are numbered 1 on the left and 2 on the right.
Similarly to the controller canisters, also expansion canisters are installed in the
enclosure side-by-side in vertical position. In this Article we are going to see
IBM V7000 Expansion Canisters Hardware Overview Explained.

Brief Description on IBM V7000 Expansion Canisters:

Expansion-canister

The interpretation of SAS status LED indicators has the same meaning as the
LED indicators of SAS ports in control enclosure

SAS-LEDs-status

The below table shows the LED status values of the expansion canister.
Expansion-Canister-LEDs-status

Enclosure SAS Cabling

Expansion enclosures are attached to control enclosures using 12 Gbps SAS
cables. IBM Storwize V7000 Gen2 Control Enclosure attaches up to 20
expansion enclosures twice more than the previous generation.

A strand starts with an SAS initiator chip inside an IBM Storwize V7000 node
canister and progresses through SAS expanders (Card), which connect disk
drives; each canister contains an expander. The below shows how the SAS
connectivity works inside the node and expansion canisters. Each drive has two
ports, each connected to a different expander and strand. This configuration
assures that both nodes in the I/O group have direct access to each drive and
there is no single point of failure.
Concept-of-SAS-chaining

A chain consists of a set of enclosures, correctly interconnected it has shown in

below figure. Chain 1 of an I/O group is connected to SAS port 1 of both node
canisters; chain 2 is connected to SAS port 2. This configuration means that
chain 2 includes the SAS expander and drives of the control enclosure.
SAS-Cabling-with-number-of-enclosures

At system initialization, when devices are added to or removed from strands,

IBM Storwize V7000 performs discovery process to update the state of the
drive and enclosure objects.

IBM V7000 Power Units:

All enclosures accommodate two power supply units (PSU) for normal
operation. A single PSU can supply the entire enclosure for redundancy. For this
reasons is highly recommended to supply AC power to each PSU from different
power distribution unit (PDU).
There is a power switch on the power supply and indicator LEDs. The switch
must be on for the PSU to be operational. If the power switch is turned off, then
the PSU stops providing power to the system. For control enclosure PSUs, the
battery integrated in the node canister continues to supply power to the node.

Fully charged battery is able to perform two firehose dumps. It supports the
power outage 5 seconds before initiating safety procedures.

The below figure shows two PSU present in the control and expansion
enclosure. The controller PSU has two green and one amber indication LEDs
reporting the status of PSU.

Controller-and-expansion-enclosure-led-status-indicator

The below figure represents the rear overview of the enclosure canister with
power unit (PSU). In contrast to he control enclosure, these PSUs do not have
power switch. The enclosure is powered on by direct attachment of power cable.
Expansion-enclosure-power-supply-unit

Power supplies in both control and expansion enclosures are hot-swappable and
replaceable without a need to shutdown a node or cluster. If the power is
interrupted in one node for less than 5 seconds, the canister will not perform
firehose dump and continue operation from battery.

This is useful for a case of for example maintenance of UPS systems in the data
center or re plugging the power to the different power source or PDU unit. A
fully charged battery is able to perform two firehose dumps.

Thats about IBM V7000 Expansion Canisters Overview