-----Original Message----- From: Jay Soffian [mailto:jay@cimedia.com] Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 1999 9:40 AM To: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: adding second LRC to FC7 FC-AL shelves
Can someone from Netapp give me the run down on upgrading FC-AL shelves for clustering. I've heard conflicting information.
We have three FC-AL FC7 shelves that only have a single LRC card in them. I know that for clustering, the shelves will need an additional LRC card (for the second FC-AL loop).
It is not clear to me what is involved in adding the LRC card. I don't see this documented in the cluster conversion guide nor in the shelf hardware guide. I have heard that this is a field procedure that Netapp needs to perform and that after it is done, the shelves need to be calibrated. I heard the down time for all of this is supposed to be several hours.
Try looking at the Fibre Channel StorageShelf Hardware Installation Guide, page 56, "Installing a Second LRC Card" http://now.netapp.com/knowledge/docs/hardware/fcshelf.pdf
It is field installable. We prefer that NetApp SE does the install as the card is sometimes hard to seat properly. There is no calibration, but we have a recipe for the SEs to follow which calls out checking that all disks are visible from both "a" and "b" loop. This is really critical to do BEFORE you attempt any takeovers/givebacks. We prefer that NetApp SEs perform the Cluster conversion to insure that everything is set up correctly.
The procedure takes 10 minutes per shelf. You should probably expect about 30 to 45 minutes for the upgrade to include time to add Cluster Interconnect and FC-AL adapters to each filer, then cable up the interconnect & "b" loops. We usually double estimates, so 1.5 to 2 hours should be set aside for this.
Paul Norman, Product Manager Direct: (408) 367-3756 Network Appliance E-Mail: pnorman@netapp.com 2770 San Tomas Expressway Corp: (408) 367-3100 Santa Clara, CA 95051 Web: WWW.NetApp.Com