Connecting to Dell EMC Unity FC storage with a DS15 Alpha with OpenVMS 7.3-2

[Robin Schrievers]

We have been trying to get our OpenVMS servers to connect to a new Dell EMC Unity Fiber Storage. So far we have been unsuccesful and i'm trying to find if someone has some suggestions to try other then we have already tried.
Some background info:

We currently use a Dell EMC VNX 5300 on which we have a LUN configured which is succefully used by the Alpha systems we use.
As this storage will be unsupported by EMC soon, we installed a Dell EMC Unity storage server.

We have done numerous tests so far however all have been unsuccesfull. They basically all result in a device visible, but offline with no paths online:

Disk $1$DGA1000: (TYFOON), device type unknown, is offline, file-oriented
device, shareable, available to cluster, device has multiple I/O paths,
error logging is enabled.

Error count 4 Operations completed 476
Owner process "" Owner UIC [SYSTEM]
Owner process ID 00000000 Dev Prot S:RWPL,O:RWPL,G:R,W
Reference count 0 Default buffer size 512
WWID 01000010:6006-0160-29A1-4D00-64F1-C45E-60E1-A050
Allocation class 1

I/O paths to device 4
Path (TYFOON), primary path, current path, not responding.
Error count 1 Operations completed 119
Path (TYFOON), not responding.
Error count 1 Operations completed 119
Path (TYFOON), not responding.
Error count 1 Operations completed 119
Path (TYFOON), not responding.
Error count 1 Operations completed 119

At the SRM console it seems things are visible properly when using the wwidmgr utility:

[0] UDID:1000 WWID:01000010:6006-0160-29a1-4d00-64f1-c45e-60e1-a050 (ev:wwid0)
- current_unit:1000 current_col: 1 default_unit:27868
via adapter via fc_nport Con DID Lun
- pga0.0.0.9.2 5006-0164-48a0-0b3b Yes 511700 0
- pga0.0.0.9.2 5006-016c-48a0-0b3b Yes 511500 0
- pgb0.0.0.10.2 5006-0165-48a0-0b3b Yes 521700 0
- pgb0.0.0.10.2 5006-016d-48a0-0b3b Yes 521500 0

AFAIK there is not much that can be done other then doing "mc sysman io scsi" and "mc sysman io auto"
My question is if there are any other tricks or things i could try to make the storage online in OpenVMS?

Hardware: Alphaserver DS15
FC Controller: Emulex LP9000
OpenVMS version: 7.3-2
The LUN won't be used to boot from.

[Michael Moroney]

Post by Robin Schrievers
We have been trying to get our OpenVMS servers to connect to a new Dell EMC Unity Fiber Storage. So far we have been unsuccesful and i'm trying to find if someone has some suggestions to try other then we have already tried.

I have forgotten most of what I knew about configuring fiber channel, but there
is a relatively obscure parameter for FC devices which tells VMS which unit
number to use (1000) in this example). Also check presentation, whether the
unit is to be presented to the host, that is whether the controller allows
VMS to see the unit.

[Craig A. Berry]

Post by Michael Moroney

Post by Robin Schrievers
We have been trying to get our OpenVMS servers to connect to a new Dell EMC Unity Fiber Storage. So far we have been unsuccesful and i'm trying to find if someone has some suggestions to try other then we have already tried.

I have forgotten most of what I knew about configuring fiber channel, but there
is a relatively obscure parameter for FC devices which tells VMS which unit
number to use (1000) in this example). Also check presentation, whether the
unit is to be presented to the host, that is whether the controller allows
VMS to see the unit.

...

I haven't dealt with fibre channel in a while either, but the old NetApp
guide might provide some clues:

<https://community.netapp.com/fukiw75442/attachments/fukiw75442/network-storage-protocols-discussions/295/1/NetApp_OpenVMS_Guide_to_Best_Practices.pdf>

Section 3.3.1, on creating a dummy LUN (LUN 0) that is used by VMS to
query the storage subsystem for information about all the other LUNs, is
what always seemed to be most difficult for the storage folks to figure
out how to do.

[Robin Schrievers]

Robin Schrievers

Post by Robin Schrievers
We have been trying to get our OpenVMS servers to connect to a new Dell EMC Unity Fiber Storage. So far we have been unsuccesful and i'm trying to find if someone has some suggestions to try other then we have already tried.

I have forgotten most of what I knew about configuring fiber channel, but there
is a relatively obscure parameter for FC devices which tells VMS which unit
number to use (1000) in this example). Also check presentation, whether the
unit is to be presented to the host, that is whether the controller allows
VMS to see the unit.

...

This UDID is set in the same way on the Unity and VNX. It's the added value of both the System wide Base UUID and the Host LUN ID of the LUN in question.
The VNX one is seen, the Unity one is not.

In our case we tried multiple combinations:

Base UUID. Host LUN ID
0 0
0 1
1000 0

They all yielded the same unsuccesful result i mentioned in my opening post

[Camiel Vanderhoeven]

Post by Robin Schrievers

Robin Schrievers

Post by Robin Schrievers
We have been trying to get our OpenVMS servers to connect to a new Dell EMC Unity Fiber Storage. So far we have been unsuccesful and i'm trying to find if someone has some suggestions to try other then we have already tried.

I have forgotten most of what I knew about configuring fiber channel, but there
is a relatively obscure parameter for FC devices which tells VMS which unit
number to use (1000) in this example). Also check presentation, whether the
unit is to be presented to the host, that is whether the controller allows
VMS to see the unit.

This UDID is set in the same way on the Unity and VNX. It's the added value of both the System wide Base UUID and the Host LUN ID of the LUN in question.
The VNX one is seen, the Unity one is not.
Base UUID. Host LUN ID
0 0
0 1
1000 0
They all yielded the same unsuccesful result i mentioned in my opening post

...

Robin,

At a minimum, you'll need to create two volumes on the SAN array; one minimal-sized one (LUN 0, UDID 0), and a "real" one, with non-zero LUN and UDID. VMS needs the LUN 0 volume to be able to discover the real volumes.

Camiel

[Robin Schrievers]

Post by Camiel Vanderhoeven

Post by Robin Schrievers

Robin Schrievers

Post by Robin Schrievers
We have been trying to get our OpenVMS servers to connect to a new Dell EMC Unity Fiber Storage. So far we have been unsuccesful and i'm trying to find if someone has some suggestions to try other then we have already tried.

I have forgotten most of what I knew about configuring fiber channel, but there
is a relatively obscure parameter for FC devices which tells VMS which unit
number to use (1000) in this example). Also check presentation, whether the
unit is to be presented to the host, that is whether the controller allows
VMS to see the unit.

This UDID is set in the same way on the Unity and VNX. It's the added value of both the System wide Base UUID and the Host LUN ID of the LUN in question.
The VNX one is seen, the Unity one is not.
Base UUID. Host LUN ID
0 0
0 1
1000 0
They all yielded the same unsuccesful result i mentioned in my opening post

Robin,
At a minimum, you'll need to create two volumes on the SAN array; one minimal-sized one (LUN 0, UDID 0), and a "real" one, with non-zero LUN and UDID. VMS needs the LUN 0 volume to be able to discover the real volumes.
Camiel

...

We more or less tried this as well.
Our first try was with a small LUN with both Base ID and Host LUN ID being 0 , and the actual LUN with Base ID 0 and Host LUN ID being 1. This was not working.
We cannot have a combination of both 0 and both a non-zero value at the same time . this is because the Base UUID is global for the whole Unity storage device

The only combination we did not try yet is having a LUN with a Host LUN ID of a non-zero value and the Base UUID being no-zero as well. This i will try first now.

We had issues with the VNX in the past too getting the Alpha to see those LUN's however, in that case it did not see any device at all without the LUN 0. The big difference with that situation, is that it does see the device now, but as offline

[Robin Schrievers]

We managed to get this to work in the end by updating the OS to OpenVMS 8.4 and install patch kit V10 on top of that.

Without the patch it didnt work, with the patch it does.

[FrankS]

Post by Robin Schrievers
We managed to get this to work in the end by updating the OS to OpenVMS 8.4 and install patch kit V10 on top of that.

Did you still need to create the placeholder for LUN 0?