Category Archives: Configuration - Page 7

How to get started setting up ESRS on the latest OE for Block and MCx codes

Posted by on April 2, 2015 No comments

It’s just another short post on a single command again. This time I was looking for an easy way to get started on ESRS on the latest OE for Block code or the newer MCx code (33.071 or newer).

First of all you need to set up DNS in your VNX machine. In Unisphere, go to settings and click on “configure DNS”.

Also, if there’s a firewall blocking internet traffic, you need to make sure the storage processors can reach *.emc.com over tcp ports 443 and 8443.

After this you can use the following command on the CLI:

naviseccli -h [SPx ip#] esrsconfig -agentProvision -user [Online Support logon name] –password [Online Support super secret password]

Repeat this for the other SP as well.

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Cisco Smart Zoning: is it really worth the effort? YES!

Posted by on February 18, 2015 1 comment

It’s been available since NX-OS 5.2(6), but is the community ready for a change? It seems the majority of SAN managers are still afraid to start using it, but why? the concept is so simple: it looks like the infamous “default zone” has made it’s way back to the storage area network, but with a twist.

Default zoning

When I was introduced to the world of Fibre Channel, over ten years ago, I remember going through the automatic steps of setting up a freshly powered-on SAN-switch and disabling the default zone, because that one makes that all initiators and targets can communicate with each other. And two initiators talking to each other is not done, because on the midrange arrays an initiator (used for data replication) can also be a target and you don’t want ports logging into each other.

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Optimizing performance using VAAI and the ESX MaxHWTransferSize setting

Posted by on June 30, 2014 1 comment

xcopy transfer size

If you’re running an EMC VNX using a lower version than block OE version 05.32.000.5.209, you might want to upgrade to the latest and greatest version (patch 209 or newer). The 209 offers EMC’s latest fixes and enhancements for VAAI performance. Many of the found performance issues have been fixed in the 209 code. However, in some environments sub-optimal performance has been detected with xcopy operations, or in some cases with the performance of non-xcopy IO during xcopy operations to the same pool.

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How to change the VNX weekly heartbeat date and time

Posted by on May 23, 2014 No comments

Changing the time for the weekly heartbeat

People with Clariion or VNX systems installed on site know that these arrays will email “home” (that’s EMC/you) once a week on a seemingly random date/time. Ok, once the day of the week and the time are set, each week the “I’m still alive” email will go out at that time. But what if you don’t want to have that email sent out at Thursday at 2:47AM and you want all of your arrays to send out that email on Saturday at noon sharp? You will need to adjust the parameters. I didn’t find a way to change the weekday, so I’m changing the time less than a day before it needs to run. So if I want it to run on Saturday at noon, I could run this script on Friday after noon. It will pick the next available day automatically.

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Configuring timezone and NTP on a Cisco MDS switch

Posted by on May 6, 2014 1 comment

Timezone and NTP configuration of a Cisco MDS switch

Using a GUI for configuring purposes isn’t always the best thing to do, although it most certainly provides a level of overview that cannot be obtained on the CLI.

I’ve found out the Device Manager default settings for NTP for example are that IPv4 addresses used to point to an NTP entity is set to “peer” and if you don’t use peer synchronization, but have a dedicated NTP server instead, it’s better to place a check mark on the “server” item. Also if you have several time sources, you can set a preferred one by placing a check mark at the particular entity.

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