NEC EXPRESS5800 User Manual

Express5800 series web-based promise array disk array controller
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NEC Express5800 Series
Web-based Promise Array
Management Professional User's Guide
(Linux Version)
(For N8103-105 Disk Array Controller)
1st Edition
08-2007
856-840000-889-A

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Summary of Contents for NEC EXPRESS5800

  • Page 1 NEC Express5800 Series Web-based Promise Array Management Professional User's Guide (Linux Version) (For N8103-105 Disk Array Controller) 1st Edition 08-2007 856-840000-889-A...
  • Page 2 (5) NEC assumes no liability arising from the use of this product, nor any liability for incidental or consequential damages arising from the use of this manual regardless of Item (4).
  • Page 3 (7) NEC will not guarantee the proper operation of the open source software including Linux kernels. Please be sure to implement and operate the Linux system based on the principle of self-responsibility.
  • Page 4: Table Of Contents

    Contents Overview ... 1 1.1 Web-based Promise Array Management Professional... 1 1.2 Precautions ... 2 Installation/Uninstallation ... 3 2.1 Operation Environment for WebPAM PRO ... 3 2.2 Installing WebPAM PRO... 3 2.3 Uninstalling WebPAM PRO ... 4 Operation... 5 3.1 Starting and Exiting WebPAM PRO... 5 3.1.1 Controlling WebPAM PRO with a Local Computer ...
  • Page 5 3.14 Initializing Logical Drive ... 63 3.15 Creating or Deleting Spare Drives ... 64 3.15.1 Creating Spare Drives ... 64 3.15.2 Deleting Spare Drives ... 66 3.16 Expansion ... 67 3.17 Event ... 71 3.18 Collecting Configuration Information ... 73 Appendix A First Logon...
  • Page 6: Overview

    1. Overview 1.1 Web-based Promise Array Management Professional Web-based Promise Array Management Professional (hereafter abbreviated for WebPAM PRO) is a Web-based application that locally or remotely manages N8103-105 Disk Array Controller provided by Promise. WebPAM PRO only supports Mozilla Firefox 1.5 or later (when monitoring from the Linux environment) and Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) 6.0 or later (when monitoring from the Windows environment) as its browser.
  • Page 7: Precautions

    1.2 Precautions Be sure to read the following notes and precautions before using WebPAM PRO: It is strongly recommended to provide media patrol or redundancy check routinely for all logical drives and HDDs to be connected. Whether the media patrol or the redundancy check is used may be determined as follows depending on the environment of your system.
  • Page 8: Installation/Uninstallation

    2.1 Operation Environment for WebPAM PRO The following operation environment is required for the proper operation of WebPAM PRO. - Hardware NEC EXPRESS5800 server available for the “N8103-105 Disk Array Controller (SAS)” - Software RHEL AS/ES 4 Update 5 or later...
  • Page 9: Uninstalling Webpam Pro

    2.3 Uninstalling WebPAM PRO IMPORTANT: Follow the procedure described in this chapter to uninstall WebPAM PRO. NOTE: WebPAM PRO is required for managing the RAID system. Do not uninstall WebPAM PRO unless you have to uninstall for maintenance including the upgrade of the utility.
  • Page 10: Operation

    3. Operation This chapter describes how to start WebPAM PRO and operations on screens appearing after starting WebPAM PRO. 3.1 Starting and Exiting WebPAM PRO IMPORTANT: For a specific controller, do not start more than one web browser or more than one tab in a browser concurrently.
  • Page 11: Controlling Webpam Pro With A Local Computer

    3.1.1 Controlling WebPAM PRO with a Local Computer 1. Start WebPAM PRO by either of the following methods. - Double-click the WebPAM PRO icon on the desktop. - <On RHEL> Select [Application] (the main menu on the panel) → [Accessory] → [WebPAMPRO].
  • Page 12: Controlling Webpam Pro With A Remote Computer

    3.1.2 Controlling WebPAM PRO with a Remote Computer NOTES: If using a proxy server for making access to the Internet, you need to bypass the proxy server. See Appendix A for the setting procedure. If a firewall function is running on the system (server), you may not controll from the remote computer.
  • Page 13: Webpam Pro Operation Window

    3.2 WebPAM PRO Operation Window 3.2.1 Using WebPAM PRO for the First Time 1. Click the Subsystem/Host Management icon in the Tree View appearing at the left side of the screen. 2. Click the Add Subsystem/Host tab in the screen appearing at the right side of the screen.
  • Page 14 3. Make sure that "127.0.0.1" is entered in the Subsystem/Host Port IP address field, and click the [Submit] button. The host PC information appears in the Tree View.
  • Page 15: Webpam Pro Operation Screen

    3.2.2 WebPAM PRO Operation Screen The WebPAM PRO window is mainly configured with three parts; Tree View, Management Window, and Event Frame. Tree View Tree View The Tree View can indicate the configuration of the RAID system hierarchically in the similar way as Windows Explorer.
  • Page 16: Icons

    3.3 Icons When you click the link to an icon on the Tree View, several setting and status display screens appear on the Management Window. The features grayed out on the Management Window are unavailable. For details of features, see the relevant chapters. Tree View Home icon Indicates the name of the current logon...
  • Page 17 Tree View Controller icon Enclosure icon Physical Drives icon Indicates HDDs in the enclosure and connected HDDs. Disk Arrays icon Indicates HDDs in the enclosure and connected HDDs. Logical Drives icon Displays the list of logical drives installed in this host. Spare Drives icon Logical Drive Summary icon Displays the battery.
  • Page 18: Managing Users

    Managing Users Creating user account To create a new user account, follow the procedure described below: 1. Logon to WebPAM PRO as an administrator, or a super privilege user. 2. Click the User Management in the Tree View and then click the Create tab in the Management Window.
  • Page 19 Privilege Power Super 4. After completing the entry, click [Submit]. If the user is created successfully, message "User was created successfully" appears. The created user is added to the list in the Information tab. Setting or changing a user account You may select an existing user and change the display name in the Settings tab and the password in the Password tab.
  • Page 20 Deleting User Account 1. Logon to WebPAM PRO as an administrator, or a super privilege user. 2. Click the User Management in the Tree View and then click the Delete tab appearing in the Management Window. 3. Check the checkbox located to the left of each user to be deleted and click [Submit]. The confirmation dialog box appears.
  • Page 21: Several Settings And Information Review

    3.5 Several Settings and Information Review Clicking an icon on the Tree View allows the relevant information to be displayed on the Management View. In the Management Window, you can view the following information or set several features. 3.5.1 Subsystem (ST EX4650EL) Icon If you select the subsystem (ST EX4650EL) icon in the Tree View, the controller information screen appears in the Management Window.
  • Page 22 Firmware Update tab The Firmware Update tab allows the firmware for the RAID card to be updated from WebPAM PRO. Do not manipulate this tab generally because it is provided only for maintenance. Health tab The Health tab indicates the health status of the controller, disk arrays, logical drives, spare drives and connected HDDs.
  • Page 23 If you click the downward arrow at the right end of the tab, then a menu item for changing the priorities of tasks (Settings) and those for starting tasks appear. Settings menu Rebuild Rate Set the priority of rebuild processing. The default is Medium. Logical Drive Initialization Set the priority of logical drive initialization.
  • Page 24: Controller

    IMPORTANT: The information is set to proper values by default. Do not change the settings. Scheduler tab If you click the center of the Scheduler tab, then tasks already scheduled are listed. One or more tasks may be scheduled. If you click the link of a scheduled task, the detailed settings appear.
  • Page 25: Information Tab

    Information tab The Information tab indicates the information on the controller. Settings tab The Settings tab allows you to set alias of the controller, provide settings on S.M.A.R.T. detection or set write cache of the controller. The information is set to proper values by default. As a rule, do not change the settings.
  • Page 26 <Description of major items> Adaptive Writeback Adaptive Writeback Cache controls the write cache mode for all of the logical Cache drives per controller base. Checked: When the following conditions match, the write policy of all logical drives under the controller sets to “Write Through”, regardless of the write policy setting for individual logical drive.
  • Page 27: Enclosure

    Buzzer tab If you click the center of the Buzzer tab, the current buzzer setting appears. Clicking the downward arrow at the right end of the tab and selecting "Settings," you can change the buzzer setting. If the setting is changed, click [Submit] to enable the new setting. Buzzer ringing is disabled by default.
  • Page 28 Global Settings tab The Global Settings tab allows you to provide settings on write and read caches for all physical drives. IMPORTANT: “SATA Drive Settings” is not supported. The write cache option is provided for HDDs and different from the cache on the disk array controller. For the setting of write cache for logical drives in battery installation, see the description of setting write cache for each logical drive in "3.6.5 Logical Drive."...
  • Page 29: Physical Drive

    3.5.5 Physical Drive If you click a specific Slot icon below Physical Drives in the Tree View, then the information on the HDD appears in the Management Window.
  • Page 30 Information tab <Description of major items> Operation Status Rebuilding OK, PDM Running OK, Media Patrol Running OK, Transition Running OK, Migration Running Dead, Forced Offline OK, Forced Online Dead Stale, PFA Settings tab The Settings tab allows you to set an alias of the physical drive. If you change the value to another, click [Submit] to fix it.
  • Page 31: Disk Arrays

    3.5.6 Disk Arrays If you select the Disk Arrays icon in the Tree View, all disk arrays are listed in the Management Window. Information tab The Information tab lists existing disk arrays. Create tab For the Create tab, see "3.6 Creating Disk Array and Logical Drive." Delete tab For the Delete tab, see "3.7 Deleting Disk Array and Logical Drive."...
  • Page 32 <Description of major items> Operation Status Degraded Offline OK, Rebuilding OK, PDM Running OK, Transition Running OK, Migration Running Transport Ready Settings tab The Settings tab allows you to enable or disable the alias, media patrol and PDM. IMPORTANT: If an error occurred in any HDD in logical drive while the PDM feature is being enabled, the data is copied onto the spare drive automatically.
  • Page 33: Logical Drives

    3.5.8 Logical Drives If you select the Logical Drives icon in the Tree View, all logical drives are listed in the Management Window. Information tab The Information tab lists existing disk arrays. 3.5.9 Logical Drive If you click a specific Logical Drive icon below "Logical Drive View" in the Tree View, then the information on the HDD appears in the Management Window.
  • Page 34 Current Write Policy This item indicates the status of the current write cache for this logical drive. The status varies depending on the setting of write cache for each logical drive, setting of write cache for the entire controller (Adaptive Writeback Cache), existence of battery connection and battery status in the battery connection environment.
  • Page 35: Spare Drives

    See the description of each BGA for details. Check Table tab If a consistency error is detected during redundancy check and the error cannot be repaired, the error is registered in the Check Table tab. Check Table Type Table Type Start Logical Block Address Count 3.5.10 Spare Drives...
  • Page 36: Creating Disk Array Or Logical Driver

    3.6 Creating Disk Array or Logical Driver A disk array can be created in any of the following three ways. Automatic Configuration Checks the number of unconfigured HDDs connected currently and creates disk arrays of a proper capacity and RAID level and logical drives automatically.
  • Page 37 The following options can be set. Redundancy Determines whether redundant logical drives are created or not. If you check the checkbox, RAID1, RAID5 or RAID10 is created depending on the number of connected HDDs available for creating logical drives. If you do not check the checkbox, RAID0 is created. Note: If only a single HDD available for creating logical drives is connected, RAID0 is created despite whether the checkbox is checked or not.
  • Page 38: Advanced Configuration

    The following list shows the difference of the settings for each Application Type. Type File Server 64KB Video Stream Transaction Data 64KB Transaction Log 64KB Other 64KB The following options are automatically set. Disk Arrays 3. Click [Submit]. Disk arrays and logical drives are automatically created. 3.6.3 Advanced Configuration 1.
  • Page 39 Advanced Configuration (Step 1 - Disk Array Creation) Disk Array Alias Enable Media Patrol Enable PDM Physical Drives Click [Next]. 3. The screen for setting details of logical drives appears. Alias (any name) Enables media patrol. The checkbox is checked by default. For details of media patrol, see "3.9 Media Patrol."...
  • Page 40 Advanced Configuration (Step 2 - Logical Drive Creation) Alias Alias (any value) RAID level Indicates the available RAID level depending on the number of physical drives selected in the previous screen. RAID0 for a single physical drive RAID0 or RAID1 for two physical drives RAID0 or RAID5 for three physical drives RAID0, RAID5 or RAID10 for four physical drives Capacity...
  • Page 41: Adding Logical Drives

    Advanced Configuration (Step 3 - Summary) If no problems are found, click [Submit]. Disk arrays and logical drives are created. 3.6.4 Adding Logical Drives If a disk array already created has empty capacity, logical drive can be added later. 1. Select a disk array to which you want to add logical drives and click the Create LD tab. The logical drives already created are displayed graphically with the colors of their RAID levels.
  • Page 42: Deleting Disk Array Or Logical Drive

    3.7 Deleting Disk Array or Logical Drive IMPORTANT: Delete neither disk arrays nor logical drives saving Windows file systems. Before a disk array or logical drive can be deleted, you must confirm that the disk array or logical drive does not save any Windows system file.
  • Page 43: Redundancy Check

    3.8 Redundancy Check Routine redundancy check allows consistencies to be detected, checked and repaired to prevent rebuild from failing at occurrence of a fault in an HDD. This is possible for logical drives of RAID level 1, 10 or 5. The redundancy check can also repair bad sectors detected during inconsistency check.
  • Page 44 The progress of the redundancy check appears in the Background Activities tab. If you click the link of the displayed task being advanced, the current progress status appears. On the screen, you can pause or stop the task. You can see the Progress bar. NOTES: If you try to provide a logical drive not full-initialized after its creation with redundancy check in the Auto...
  • Page 45: Scheduling Redundancy Check

    3.8.1 Scheduling Redundancy Check To schedule routine redundancy check, follow the procedure below. 1. Click the subsystem (ST EX4650EL) icon in the Tree View. 2. Click the downward arrow at the right end of the Scheduler tab in the Management Window and then click Add BGA Scheduler.
  • Page 46 (Do not provide setting for any option with "*unavailable." Failure to follow this instruction may cause the system to operate improperly.) Run Time - Start Time Recurrence Pattern Range of Recurrence Redundancy Check Options Enter the start time. You can set the hour with the left pull-down menu and the minute in five minutes with the right pull-down menu.
  • Page 47 Apply to Redundant Logical Drives Do not use the options with “*unavavailable” suffixed in the above list. 5. After the settings are completed, click [Submit]. Click [Back] to return to the previous screen. Click [Cancel] to cancel the settings. If redundancy check is scheduled, the screen display changes to the schedule list screen. The scheduling just set is added to the list.
  • Page 48 click Delete Schedules. 3. Check the checkbox of the redundancy check which you want to delete and click [Submit]. The confirmation dialog box asking whether the redundancy check may be deleted appears. Click [OK]. NOTE: You can set a single schedule of redundancy check for a single logical drive.
  • Page 49: Media Patrol

    3.9 Media Patrol The media patrol feature provides entire reading for the following target HDDs. Because of aged deterioration, it may not be possible to detect faults of HDDs until they are accessed. The media patrol, or routine read and check of data in HDDs, allows such faults to be detected as soon as possible.
  • Page 50 The media patrol is started. The progress of the media patrol appears in the Background Activities tab. If you click the link of the displayed task being advanced, the current progress status appears. On the screen, you can pause or stop the task. You can see the Progress bar.
  • Page 51: Scheduling Media Patrol

    Progress on Current Physical Drive Number of Physical Drives Completed Number of Physical Drives Queued Completed Physical Drives IDs Queued Physical Drives IDs NOTES: During media patrol, "Yielded" may appear in the Media Patrol Status field. The media patrol is set to have the lowest running priority by default.
  • Page 52 To add schedule setting of media patrol, follow the procedure below. 1. Click the subsystem (ST EX4650EL) icon in the Tree View. 2. Click the arrow at the right end of the Scheduler tab in the Management Window and then click Add BGA Scheduler.
  • Page 53 Recurrence Pattern Range of Recurrence 5. After the settings are completed, click [Submit]. Click [Back] to return to the previous screen. Click [Cancel] to cancel the settings. If media patrol is scheduled, the screen display changes to the schedule list screen. The scheduling just set is added to the list.
  • Page 54 Suspending (deleting) schedule setting 1. Click the subsystem (ST EX4650EL) icon in the Tree View. 2. Click the arrow at the right end of the Scheduler tab in the Management Window and then click Delete Schedules. 3. Check the checkbox of the media patrol which you want to delete and click [Submit]. The confirmation dialog box asking whether the media patrol may be deleted appears.
  • Page 55: Rebuild

    3.10 Rebuild The rebuild feature can recover redundancy if a single HDD is defected in RAIL level 1, 10 or During rebuild, data read/write is enabled. However, the redundancy is lost until the rebuild operation is completed. If an HDD is defected, logical drives are entered into the critical state, of which you are notified. IMPORTANT: Note that load is applied to the system to decrease its processing rate during rebuild.
  • Page 56: Manual Rebuild

    3.10.3 Manual Rebuild For manual rebuild, follow the procedure below. 1. Click a degraded disk array in the Tree View. 2. Click the arrow at the right end of the Background Activities tab in the Management Window and select Start Rebuild 3.
  • Page 57 If Enable Buzzer is checked in controller setting, the buzzer rings with the logical drive being in the critical or offline state or rebuilt. To turn on/off the buzzer, check or uncheck the checkbox of Enable Buzzer in the Controller Settings tab. See the description of the Buzzer tab in "3.5.2 Controller"...
  • Page 58: Pdm

    3.11 PDM The PDM (Predictive Data Migration) feature always monitors HDDs configuring logical drives, previously senses HDDs suspected to be defected and copies data in the HDDs to spare drives. Different from the rebuild feature, PDM can be done without degrading of logical drives. After the data copy, the status display of the source HDDs becomes Stale and they are recognized as PFA error.
  • Page 59 3. Specify the following. Source Physical Drive Target Physical Drive 4. Click [Submit]. PDM is started. It may take much time depending on the capacity. During the execution of PDM, you can check the progress. 5. When the processing is completed, the status display of source HDD becomes "Stale,PFA" and the icon in the Tree View is marked with a red cross (×).
  • Page 61: Transition

    3.12 Transition At the occurrence of a fault, logical drives may be degraded and recovered by hot spare rebuild. This results in separation of the configured slot positions of the logical drives. However, creating spare drives of revertible type previously (see "3.15 Creating or Deleting Spare Drives") allows logical drives to be returned to the original successive slot positions.
  • Page 62 3. Hot spare rebuild is done by using PD4 to create a logical drive having PD1, PD3 and PD4 as configured HDDs. 4. Replace the defected physical drive with a new physical drive having a capacity equal to or larger than the capacity of the defected drive. 5.
  • Page 63 <Example of manual transition> 1. Original state: RAID1 Create spare drives of revertible type. (See "3.15 Creating or Deleting Spare Drives" for details.) Revertible 2. Occurrence of a fault in PD2 A fault occurs in a physical drive among those configuring a disk array. The disk array is entered into the degraded state (logical drives are entered into the critical state).
  • Page 64 3. Hot spare rebuild is done by using PD4 to create a logical drive having PD1 and PD4 as configured HDDs. 4. To make free physical drive PD3 be a configured HDD of the original logical drive, you can select PD3 manually in this state to run transition. (1) Click the arrow at the right end of the Background Activities tab and select Start Transition.
  • Page 65 NOTE: The “Operation Status” field may show “Transition Running” although Transition has finished. Check the messages regarding Transition in the application log to find that the transition processing has finished.
  • Page 66: Transport

    3.13 Transport The transport feature is used to move a disk array in the online state with its normal status remaining unchanged. 1. Click a disk array for which you want to provide transport in the Tree View and click the Transport tab.
  • Page 67 5. Insert the pull-out HDDs into slots in the environment subordinate to a new disk array controller N8103-105 and refresh the HDDs. Then a normal disk array is recognized.
  • Page 68: Initializing Logical Drive

    3.14 Initializing Logical Drive A disk array can be initialized additionally after it is created. Full initialization set all data bits in logical drives to zero. If logical drives are created, it is recommended to run full initialization first. IMPORTANT: Initialization erases all data completely.
  • Page 69: Creating Or Deleting Spare Drives

    3.15 Creating or Deleting Spare Drives 3.15.1 Creating Spare Drives IMPORTANT: The following HDDs cannot be used for spare drives. - HDD that has been configured to any disk array - HDD with partitions. Spare drives are used to protect a redundant logical drive when hard disk drives in the logical drive are defected.
  • Page 70 4. Click the Update button. The specified spare drives are added to the list of New Hot Spare Drives at the bottom. 5. Click [Submit]. The spare drives are defined. The created spare drives appear additionally in the Information tab. IMPORTANT: The HDDs that are not configured to an logical drive nor set as spare cannot be used as spare drives.
  • Page 71: Deleting Spare Drives

    3.15.2 Deleting Spare Drives Follow the procedure below to delete spare drives. 1. Click Spare Drives in the Tree View. 2. Click the Delete tab in the Management Window. Check the checkboxes of spare drives to be deleted and click [Submit]. The following popup appears.
  • Page 72: Expansion

    3.16 Expansion IMPORTANT: Before logical drives are provided with expansion, be sure to back up the data in the disks. If an unexpected error occurs during expansion, data in the disks may be destroyed. In this feature, only RAID5 configured with three physical drives can be expanded to that configured with four drives.
  • Page 73 2. Click the arrow at the right end of the Background Activities tab in the Management Window and select Start Migration. 3. Select physical drives used for the expansion. Click [>>] to move the physical drives to the Selected frame. Click [Next].
  • Page 74 4. Set detailed information on the disk array. RAID Level RAID5 only Expand Capacity Check the checkbox to increase the capacity. This item is grayed out if the disk array has no empty capacity. Capacity To increase the capacity, specify the value. Click [Update].
  • Page 75 6. The confirmation dialog box appears. Type "confirm" and click [OK]. The screen indicating the progress of the expansion appears. Click You can see the Progress bar.
  • Page 76: Event

    3.17 Event WebPAM PRO classifies every event occurred in a RAID system as an error, warning or information to record it. This is effective to diagnose or solve faults occurred in the system. IMPORTANT: The log times appearing on the WebPAM PRO screen are later than the times at which the events occur.
  • Page 77 If an event occurs, such a popup as shown below appears at the upper right corner of the WebPAM PRO screen. NOTE: Sorting the events is unavailable.
  • Page 78: Collecting Configuration Information

    3.18 Collecting Configuration Information Controller and array configuration information can be saved in a text format by specifying destination. The feature is intended for maintenance. Collect configuration information in the procedure below if you are directed by a maintenance engineer. 1.
  • Page 79: Appendix A First Logon

    Appendix A First Logon Perform the following procedure to make settings for security: 1. The security alert dialog box appears. Click [Examine Certificate…] to display the certificate. 2. The [Certificate Viewer] dialog box appears. After confirming the description, click [Close]. 3.
  • Page 80 window will be displayed at next logon. The setting for security is completed.
  • Page 81: Appendix B Report Monitoring

    Appendix B Report Monitoring To use Alert notification feature after installing NEC ESMPRO Manager, the following settings are required. (This feature can be used only in the Windows environment.) 1. Untar the WebPAM PRO installation module. Ex.) As the WebPAM PRO installation module is “WPPInst-1.00.tar.gz”: # tar -zxvf WPPInst-1.00.tar.gz...
  • Page 82 After the installation of WebPAM PRO, the following messages registered with the name "Promise Event Logger" are set as reported sources. To change the setting, redefine it by using the report setting feature of the NEC ESMPRO Agent. Event Message...
  • Page 83 SMART error is received The above table shows the event IDs in decimal. The events listed in the table are reported to NEC ESMPRO Manager. The symbols such as %1 in messages are padding characters. Action Replace the failed HDD.

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