Actually it is documented in the "Fibre Channel StorageShelf Hardware Guide". There is a chapter on doing exactly this although the doc says attach A channel first. You can see it on-line on NOW: http://now.netapp.com/knowledge/docs/hardware/fcshelf.pdf Its in appendix A, entitled "Adding Hardware for a Cluster".

I'm not surprised that you didn't find it. I'm the product manager for Clusters and I've reviewed every manual numerous times. I knew it existed somewhere but it still took me 15 minutes to dig it up. Unless your one of those people who reads every manual cover to cover you probably would never have known it existed.

The Tech Pubs crew here has done major reorganizations of the manual set. They have put all the software manuals on line in HTML in addition to the pdf format. They are always looking for ways to improve the doc set and welcome comments from customers on things they can do to make the docs easier to use (It would be nice if you told them when they've done something you like too, but that might be pushing it). You can send comments via feedback on NOW or send e-mail to doccomments@netapp.com.

When you run across issues like this, where you can't find something, a quick note saying what you wanted and where you looked might help the next time they reorganize the manual to put the information in a better place or create a better index or whatever.

PS. In house we just rack the shelf and shut down, add the daisy chains, power up. It only takes a five minutes, but then we're pretty adept at cabling since we get so much practice, YMMV.

Cheers

Paul Norman, Product Manager Direct: (408) 822-6288 Network Appliance E-Mail: pnorman@netapp.com 495 East Java Drive Corp: (408) 822-6000 Sunnyvale, CA 94089 Web: WWW.NetApp.Com

-----Original Message----- From: Mohler, Jeff [mailto:jeff.mohler@wilcom.com] Sent: Thursday, August 05, 1999 9:42 AM To: Jay Soffian; toasters@mathworks.com Subject: RE: Adding a FC shelf in a cluster w/o downtime

My initial feelings are 'bad things will happen'.

I dont have any technical data to back that up, other than its not documented to do it that way.

-----Original Message----- From: Jay Soffian [mailto:jay@cimedia.com] Sent: Thursday, August 05, 1999 10:05 AM To: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: Adding a FC shelf in a cluster w/o downtime

We are going to be adding an additional FC shelf to our clustered F740's. Obviously, the safe way to do this is to halt both 740's, attach the A & B loops, then bring both filers back up.

But, what I was wonder was, would it be possible to:

• Attach the B-loop first.
• Have the B-Loop Filer take over all th shelves (including

the new shelf).

• Attach the A-Loop.
• Give back the shelves to the A-Loop filer.

I don't think we'll do this as we're only talking about about maybe 2 minutes of downtime vs 30 seconds, but I was wondering if this is a feasible thing to do.

Thoughts?

j.