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Failover Behavior
Storage Center failover behaves in the following manner.
Table 5. Failover Behavior Scenarios
Scenario
Virtual Port Mode Behavior
Legacy Mode Behavior
Normal
operating
conditions
All ports are active and pass I/O.
• Primary ports pass I/O.
• Reserved ports remain in a standby
mode until a storage controller failure.
A single port
becomes
unavailable
An individual port moves to another port in
the fault domain.
The port does not move over because
there was no storage controller failure. If a
second path is available, MPIO software on
the server provides fault tolerance.
A storage
controller
becomes
unavailable
Virtual ports on the offline storage
controller can move to the available
storage controller.
Primary ports on the offline storage
controller can move to the reserved ports
on the available storage controller.
Multipath I/O
MPIO allows a server to use multiple paths for I/O if they are available.
MPIO software offers redundancy at the path level. MPIO typically operates in a round-robin manner by
sending packets first down one path and then the other. If a path becomes unavailable, MPIO software
continues to send packets down the functioning path.
NOTE: MPIO is operating-system specific, and it loads as a driver on the server or it is part of the
server operating system.
MPIO Behavior
The server must have at least two FC or iSCSI ports to use MPIO.
When MPIO is configured, a server can send I/O to multiple ports on the same storage controller.
MPIO Configuration Instructions for Host Servers
To use MPIO, configure MPIO on the server prior to connecting the server to the Storage Center.
To configure MPIO on a host server, see the Dell Storage Center Best Practices document on the Dell
TechCenter site (
http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/storage/
) that corresponds to the server
operating system. Depending on the operating system, you may need to install MPIO software or
configure server options.
Table 6. MPIO Configuration Documents
Operating System
Document with MPIO Instructions
IBM AIX
Dell Storage Center with AIX Best Practices
Linux
•
Dell Storage Center with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6x Best
Practices
•
Dell Storage Center with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7x Best Practices
Connect the Front-End Cabling
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