Transcript
HPE Smart SAN for 3PAR automates SAN orchestration New HPE Smart SAN 2.0 enhancements with HPE 3PAR SSMC support
Technical white paper
Technical white paper
Contents Executive summary ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 3 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................4 HPE Smart SAN for 3PAR architecture overview ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Peer zoning ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................5 Benefits of peer zoning.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................5 HPE 3PAR StoreServ TDPZ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................6 How HPE 3PAR TDPZ works .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................7 Creating TDPZ using HPE 3PAR SSMC ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 8 Automated zone creation for HPE 3PAR Storage Federation ................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 11 Initiator-based zoning vs. TDPZ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 14 Initiator-based zoning...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 14 Target-based peer zoning .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 14 Coexistence of regular zoning and TDPZ ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 14 Active zone set ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................14 Modification of zones ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 15 Enable/disable/delete ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 15 TDPZ flow sequence ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 15 CLI commands to manage TDPZ .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 17 Best practices .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 17 Topologies.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 18 Terminology.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 19 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 20
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Executive summary Many companies are implementing hybrid cloud strategies to increase the speed, scalability, and efficiency of their data center deployments. HPE Helion Hybrid Cloud provides comprehensive solutions in this area offering the best combination of private and public cloud deployment and management. Within these data centers, HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage all-flash arrays have been a great success in bringing the benefits of the public cloud to private and hybrid cloud environments. The HPE 3PAR StoreServ family of all-flash arrays provides excellent performance, scalability, manageability, and affordability needed in hybrid environments. Combined with HPE Smart SAN for 3PAR, the all-flash array solutions become even more attractive and provide unmatched ease of deployment and manageability benefits to the Fibre Channel (FC) SAN. SAN plays a critical role in any data center by providing access and connectivity between storage arrays and servers via a dedicated network. FC has been the dominant storage protocol that enjoys significant market share within SAN deployments. FC gained its popularity mainly because of its enterprise-class performance, availability, and security. FC zoning is one key feature that adds to security and better management of the SAN by providing necessary segregation and allowing controlled communication among selected devices within a large fabric. However, configuring zones still is a complex, tedious, and error-prone operation in a majority of SAN installations. Therefore, there is a need for automating these operations as much as possible to avoid human errors and reduce potential SAN downtime. Traditional zoning mechanisms have some limitations and to overcome these, users have to create a large number of zones than necessary, which makes configuration of zones even more complex. To address these issues, the Fibre Channel Standards Technical Committee T11, developed a new type of zoning known as peer zoning. This has several advantages compared to traditional zoning. However, there still exists a significant number of manual steps in the zoning process, thereby necessitating the need to automate, save time, and reduce errors. To address the complexity of traditional SAN zoning, Hewlett Packard Enterprise used an industry-standard FC definition. HPE Smart SAN comes with an added set of creative software features, collaborated with server adapter and switch vendors to gather SAN Intelligence and implement software-based automated zoning to address the traditional SAN issues. The HPE approach called HPE Smart SAN for 3PAR is a holistic way to address end-to-end SAN complexity. In addition, it also supports standards-based device registrations and diagnostic data collection for better configuration, visibility, and diagnostic purposes. HPE Smart SAN for 3PAR leverages the intelligence gathered from an HPE StoreFabric SAN including B-Series 16 Gb and 32 Gb FC switches, HPE StoreFabric 16Gb and 32Gb FC HBAs and select HPE FlexFabric 5900 Switch Series for automated end-to-end SAN zoning and more. 1 Automated zoning as implemented on HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage System as part of HPE Smart SAN for 3PAR 1.0 software, utilizes peer zoning as defined in FC standards. This empowers HPE 3PAR Storage Systems to configure zones automatically whenever hosts are provisioned on the target side. This drastically improves customer operational experience with a significant reduction in overall SAN configuration time, as well as making the whole process less error-prone and more resilient. As an example, in a midsized SAN consisting of nine fabric switches, zone configuration for 128 host initiators and eight HPE 3PAR target ports, resulted in a saving of over 80 percent configuration time with target-driven peer zoning (TDPZ). 2 HPE Smart SAN for 3PAR version 2.0 now includes support for HPE 3PAR StoreServ Management Console 3.1 (SSMC), which adds further graphical simplification to host provisioning and zone configuration.
HPE Smart SAN for 3PAR interoperates with non-HPE StoreFabric Brocade FC switches and non-HPE StoreFabric QLogic and Emulex FC host bus adapters with the required firmware version for HPE Smart SAN on FC switches and FC hosts 2 HP (now Hewlett Packard Enterprise) internal testing performed in one of the HPSD (now HPESD) SQA Labs, May 2015 (with CLI-based scripts) 1
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Introduction HPE Smart SAN for 3PAR brings a set of innovative features based on FC in-band control and communication for SAN management. HPE Smart SAN helps reduce SAN complexity with automation and target orchestration. FC zoning is one such feature and in combination with HPE 3PAR StoreServ, Hewlett Packard Enterprise has introduced TDPZ and the remainder of this paper mainly focuses on how TDPZ is implemented and how it significantly improves SAN management in general and zoning in particular. TDPZ is also sometimes referred as target zoning, target-driven zoning, and HPE Smart SAN zoning. Regarding SAN zoning implementations, the current industry best practice for zoning a switch is to employ techniques, which configure zones on a host initiator basis; for example, a SAN zone consisting of a single initiator and all its target devices, or more preferably just a single initiator (host) and a single target (storage) port per SAN zone. There are several advantages in this 1:1 method, but the downside of 1 initiator/1 target is that SAN administrator has to create a large number of SAN zones, which makes this practice tedious and usually takes hours to implement in a midsized SAN, even with existing SAN management tools and automated scripts.
By 2019, 20 percent of traditional high-end storage arrays will be replaced by dedicated solid-state arrays (SSAs). 3 With HPE Smart SAN (TDPZ), all the initiator-based zoning advantages can be achieved with much less complexity, less time, and more accuracy. The zones are created and managed by the storage array, and it removes the requirement for configuring zones before actually performing host and LUN provisioning on the array. Such a process is more efficient, less error-prone, and in a majority of the cases, zones can be configured in minutes and not in hours, as was the case previously. In addition, HPE Smart SAN has features that offer significant advantages. A brief description of these advantages is given in the following sections.
HPE Smart SAN for 3PAR architecture overview HPE Smart SAN is a distributed application and a framework embedded in end-to-end SAN components, along with a target-driven (storage array) setup and configuration mechanism across the entire SAN. HPE Smart SAN listens to the network announcements and simplifies storage management, which is also service centric and protocol agnostic. It’s integrated into the network topology, which allows switches to assist and participate in SAN discovery as well as provides efficient networking. HPE Smart SAN is distributed intelligence that runs in switches and in endpoints, that is, targets and initiators. In case of FC, HPE Smart SAN uses the Fibre Channel Common Transport (FC-CT)-based command protocol as defined in FC standards and adds additional HPE Smart SAN-specific enhancements. For details, refer to HPE 3PAR Smart SAN 1.0 User Guide. As shown in figure 1, intelligence is embedded in all three components of SAN, which are initiators, switches, and targets. In HPE Smart SAN 2.0, three main features were introduced. They were: 1. HPE 3PAR-based TDPZ 2. Standards-based device discovery using fabric device management interface (FDMI) 3. Standards-based diagnostics data collection based on read diagnostic parameters (RDPs) standards
HPE Smart SAN for 3PAR 2.0 is now enhanced to support HPE 3PAR SSMC for configuring and displaying zones. Following are the HPE Smart SAN 2.0 key additions: 1. HPE 3PAR SSMC v3.1-graphical user interface (GUI) support 2. Federated target-driven peer zoning support 3. Alias support* 4. RDP enhancements* 5. Port binding*
RAS Core Research Note G00260420 Magic Quadrant for Solid-State Arrays, Gartner, August 2014 * Supported with select HPE FlexFabric 5900 Switch Series and only in HPE Smart SAN 2.0
3
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Figure 1. HPE Smart SAN architecture overview
Peer zoning As defined in Fibre Channel Generic Services (FC-GS) standards, peer zoning is a new way of enforcing zones in FC fabrics. By definition, peer zones are identified by a zone name and it consists of principal members and peer members. As defined in FC standards, in a peer zone, there can be one or more principal members and similarly one or more peer members. Peer zones can coexist with traditional zones in the same active zone set. In a peer zone, by definition, communication between a principal member and a peer member is allowed, but communication is not allowed between any two peer members. Switch management tools or any device that has access to switch via in-band protocol can configure peer zones. FC-GS standard defines a set of three commands to read, add or update, and remove a peer zone from the active zone set. These commands are: GAPZ—Get Active Peer Zone • This command is used to read peer zones from the existing switch database. AAPZ—Add/Replace Active Peer Zone • This command is used to configure a new zone or modify an existing zone. RAPZ—Remove Active Peer Zone • This command is used to remove a zone from an existing switch database. There are other commands, but these are the three primary commands used for creation, modification, and removal of peer zones.
Benefits of peer zoning With traditional zoning, one-to-many zoning is not preferred, especially with one target and many hosts being in the same zone. The reason is that zoning permits communication between all members including hosts and initiators, which is unnecessary traffic that should be avoided. Often, fabric disruptions cause unnecessary change notification traffic that is irrelevant and is a hindrance for a majority of the members in that zone. To overcome this limitation, one-to-one (one target and one initiator) zones are recommended, but this quickly consumes valuable switch resources internally and also results in the creation of a large number of zones—resulting in inefficiency and wastage of time.
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Peer zoning avoids all of these issues and at the same time, permits configuring one-to-many type zones as shown in figure 2. In this example, there is one target port (T1) and multiple hosts (H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, and H6) that are part of the same zone. Here communication is only allowed between a host and the target (storage array) but not between any two hosts. Similarly, any disturbance due to one of the host ports is only restricted to the target port and the rest of the host ports is shielded from receiving irrelevant traffic and change notifications. In summary, peer zoning provides all of the benefits of initiator-based zoning (the most commonly used type) with less number of zones and optimal use of switch resources.
Figure 2. Peer zoning example
HPE 3PAR StoreServ TDPZ With simple peer zoning, zones still need to be configured manually either using the switch CLI or GUI, or some external management tool. There is still a need to automate resulting in the need for an HPE 3PAR StoreServ TDPZ. With HPE 3PAR Storage, these zones can be automatically created by the array itself and thus avoid any zone pre-configuration requirement before hosts can be provisioned to the array. This significantly reduces the time needed to configure SANs and makes them less error-prone. Without TDPZ, it is a requirement that an administrator must preconfigure zones on the switch before configuring hosts and VLUNs on the target side. With HPE 3PAR StoreServ TDPZ, the user can now go directly to the HPE 3PAR CLI or HPE 3PAR SSMC and start provisioning hosts to the array ports. All that the user needs to do is to ensure that HPE Smart SAN is enabled on the switches before starting provisioning of hosts. HPE 3PAR StoreServ TDPZ utilizes existing CLI commands with minor extensions to trigger peer zoning. Specifically, users just need to add a host and target port association via a single CLI command and the rest is done automatically. All the communications between the HPE 3PAR StoreServ port and the switch (TDPZ commands as shown in figure 3) are completely automated and transparent to the user. Users can also read these target-created zones and display them using another existing HPE 3PAR CLI command with minor extensions. Starting with HPE Smart SAN 2.0, users can directly go to HPE 3PAR SSMC to create TDPZ zones, as well as automating the zoning needed for HPE 3PAR Storage Federation. For detailed information, see the HPE 3PAR SSMC user guide and HPE 3PAR Smart SAN 1.0 user guide. To leverage HPE 3PAR SSMC with HPE Smart SAN 3PAR OS 3.3.1 is required. Another major advantage of TDPZ, with minor extensions, is that users can read and display zones right from the view of HPE 3PAR CLI or HPE 3PAR SSMC without going to the switch or any other management tool, which saves time, simplifies host provisioning, and reduces human errors.
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Figure 3. TDPZ example
How HPE 3PAR TDPZ works Once HPE Smart SAN is enabled on switches, users can start provisioning hosts on the HPE 3PAR side using “createhost” command in the HPE 3PAR CLI or using HPE 3PAR SSMC GUI. The “createhost” command has a special flag to include which HPE 3PAR port (node/slot/port or N:S:P) is associated with this chosen host or initiator. As soon as this command is executed, HPE 3PAR TDPZ is triggered and zoning commands are issued to the switch using the in-band protocol. Users can issue multiple “createhost” commands on the HPE 3PAR, but zones will be created on a target port basis with the initiators being consolidated under the particular port. The target port that is issuing these commands will be the principal member in the zone and all its initiators will be peer members. Once the switch accepts these commands and the zoning transaction is complete, it will send a special RSCN to the target port indicating the completion of a zone operation. The target, optionally, can send a GAPZ command and verify if the zone has been created as specified. This completes the operation of a zone creation as initiated by the target. This process can be repeated to create any number of zones and from one or more HPE 3PAR ports or from additional HPE 3PAR systems at the same time. Before creating zones from the target, the following needs to be verified: • HPE Smart SAN basic license is installed on the HPE 3PAR • HPE Smart SAN–capable switch with correct firmware is in place • HPE 3PAR port is directly connected to HPE Smart SAN or target zoning–enabled port on the switch Note: TDPZ is supported only with HPE 3PAR 16 Gb ports
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Creating TDPZ using HPE 3PAR SSMC HPE Smart SAN 2.0 further simplifies the creation of TDPZ with a few simple clicks using an already familiar HPE 3PAR SSMC screens. It creates hosts, maps them with the desired target ports, and automatically creates zones completely transparent to the user or administrator, and is error free. The following section describes high-level steps involved along with screenshots showing details of events captured. Hosts and their associated zones can be created from the Hosts screen within Block Persona (Block Persona> Hosts). • Select Create Host • On the Create Host screen, the drop-down menu lists the host names as well as the host’s operating system • Select the “host name” from the pull down menu located in the section labeled General
• Select the host name, and once the host name is selected, HPE 3PAR SSMC will automatically fill in the Host OS and Persona for the selected host as shown in the following screenshot. • Select or remove the paths to associate with the host and then select Create.
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After the host is successfully created, select Host Details from the drop-down menu to see additional information about the HBA, such as firmware and driver versions (Block Persona > Hosts > Host Details).
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Select Overview from the drop-down menu to see the HPE 3PAR ports associated with the host (Block Persona> Hosts > Overview).
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Automated zone creation for HPE 3PAR Storage Federation Using HPE 3PAR SSMC to configure Storage Federation, the required zoning configuration will be automatically created using the HPE 3PAR TDPZ feature. There is no longer a need to access the switch to create the zones used by HPE 3PAR Storage Federation as long as the HPE 3PARs and associated switches are HPE Smart SAN-enabled. The following steps perform federated target-driven peer zoning (FTDPZ): 1. Go to Storage Systems> Federations and select Create Federation 2. On the Create Federation screen, select and add only HPE Smart SAN-enabled HPE 3PAR systems. The zoning is automatically created.
The requirements for the systems to be selected for federation are listed in the Create Federation screen. For the federated automated zoning feature, HPE 3PAR OS 3.2.2 EMU2 or later is required.
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3. The Add Systems screen for selecting the storage systems for the federation will then appear. Select the systems for the federation and
select Add.
Back on the Create Federation screen, the selected storage systems will be displayed. If the selection of peer and host ports need to be edited, select the appropriate edit option (pencil icon) and a dialog box similar to the following will appear:
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4. Select Create on the original Create Federation screen, and the necessary zoning will be automatically established. While the zoning is being
set up, the following screen may appear. The federation creation has not failed. This display will appear while the zoning is being set up.
After the zoning is successfully set up, the following screen will appear, indicating that the federation and its zoning has been set up.
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Initiator-based zoning vs. TDPZ Traditionally, the most commonly used type of zoning has been “initiator-based zoning” because of its added advantage of isolating all unnecessary traffic between devices and only confining traffic between an initiator and its target port. This is also known as 1:1 zoning because in any zone there is only one initiator and one target port thus limiting zone members just to two in any given zone. The downside of this is that the user has to create a large number of zones, which is very time consuming and error prone. Even using scripting this takes quite a significant amount of time because it requires creating one zone at a time. It can take hours even in midsize SAN configurations to configure it. As an example, if we have just 128 initiators and eight target ports, this results in 1,024 zones, assuming each initiator needs to talk to each target port. Typically, to configure 1,024 zones, it takes at least a couple of hours even using a script. With HPE 3PAR TDPZ, we need to create just 16 zones (with 64 members per zone and two per target port), and it takes a fraction of the time to create these 16 zones using a script. At the same time, the user has all the advantages of initiator-based zoning described earlier. Experiments have shown a saving of time over 80 percent in configuring these zones as described earlier. 4 TDPZ is target driven and is part of a target configuration that further reduces overall SAN configuration time. What’s more, the time taken eliminates the need to handle multiple element managers. Following are the high-level steps involved in configuring these two zone types.
Initiator-based zoning • Select an initiator and identify its WWPN • Select a target port and its WWPN that need to talk to this initiator • Configure a zone using switch management tools • Repeat for each initiator and target in the fabric • Add zones to active zone set and enable configuration
Target-based peer zoning • Select an initiator’s WWPN and using “createhost” command, select the NSP or NSPs that it needs to be zoned with • Repeat for each initiator • Zones are automatically configured by the target/switch via peer zone commands
Coexistence of regular zoning and TDPZ While peer zoning is very efficient and less error-prone, there may be a need to have a mixed environment where regular zones and target-created peer zones need to coexist. Similarly, in a given fabric, there may also be a need for coexistence of HPE Smart SAN-enabled switches and non-HPE Smart SAN switches. With HPE Smart SAN 2.0, all of these are possible and supported. This gives flexibility to customers to deploy mixed environments initially and with a plan on moving to everything HPE Smart SAN capable.
Active zone set There should be an active zone set prior to creating and adding zones to the active zone configuration. This is true for regular zones as well as peer zones including target created peer zones. However, HPE Smart SAN-based HPE 3PAR TDPZ automates this process and saves time for users thus providing a much better experience with zone configurations. With HPE Smart SAN for 3PAR 1.0, select HPE 5900CP Switch Series support zone configuration creation automatically when the target attempts to create its first zone if one does not exist already. With HPE StoreFabric B-Series switches, the user needs to ensure a zone configuration is created and activated prior to creating target-based zones, but plans are in place to change this in the next version of switch firmware.
4
HP (now Hewlett Packard Enterprise) internal testing performed in one of the HPSD (now HPESD) SQA Labs, May 2015
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Modification of zones HPE 3PAR TDPZ creates the peer zones with target ports as the principal members and their respective initiators as peer members. As described earlier, these target-created peer zones can coexist with other zones in the same active zone set. The target can create and modify its zones as needed and similarly, users can create and modify their own zones using other switch management tools. However, it’s not permitted for other switch management tools to modify the zones created by the target. This is done to ensure additional security and to manage zones in a controlled way.
Enable/disable/delete Prior to creating any target zones, it’s required to enable target zoning on the connected switch. For HPE StoreFabric B-Series switches, this can be done using “portCfgTDZ” command. This allows users to enable TDPZ on a per-port basis or for all ports with a single command. For HPEN switches, this is automatically enabled with the HPE Smart SAN-enable command. See HPE 3PAR Smart SAN 1.0 User Guide for more details. This is the only requirement from the switch side. Once this is done, users can go to the target and start provisioning hosts, and zone configuration happens automatically using in-band peer zone commands as explained earlier. Similarly, target zoning can be disabled from the switch side using the same commands as described earlier. In addition, switch management tools allow users to delete target created zones. The entire zone can be deleted, but it is not possible to modify zones.
TDPZ flow sequence The sequence diagram as shown in figure 4 highlights major in-band commands exchanged between the target and switch while configuring zones automatically for the users. On HPE 3PAR, the target zoning is triggered when a user tries to create a host and specifies an association between the host and an HPE 3PAR port. As seen in figure 4, HPE 3PAR first ascertains that target zoning is enabled on the switch port where the target is connected. For this, it utilizes Get Fabric Enhanced Zoning Support (GFEZ) command and the response from the switch confirms if the target zoning is enabled or not. If target zoning is enabled on that port, HPE 3PAR proceeds with the rest of the commands. The main command used in zone creation is AAPZ, which sends information to the switch for the creation of a new zone or modifying an existing zone. The payload of this command contains the zone name and zone member list along with their attributes. The zone attribute primarily specifies zone type as peer zone and who the principal member is. Presently, HPE 3PAR TDPZ supports one principal member per zone but this may be enhanced to support multiple principal members per zone in a future release. The zone name is also automatically created by HPE 3PAR while sending this command. All HPE 3PAR created zones will start with tdz3par_ followed by port worldwide name (pWWN) of the target port creating this zone. Similarly, the same command can be used to make changes to an existing zone with the same name. The switch will automatically figure this out if this is a new zone being created or an existing zone being modified based on the information it already has in its zone database.
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Figure 4. TDPZ flow sequence (in-band commands)
Similarly, there is another command called Remove Active Peer Zone (RAPZ), which allows a target to remove an existing target created peer zone by just specifying its name. Secondly, as shown in figure 4, all these commands issued in an interval of up to one minute will be consolidated and committed to switch zone database in a single transaction. This one feature helps tremendously if the target sends multiple commands in that the one-minute interval rapidly. So, it’s highly recommended as best practices that users employ a script on the target side for creating hosts so that all those commands issued in one-minute interval will be consolidated and zones will be created in a single transaction. Initial results have shown that in a midsized SAN, by using this approach, hundreds of zones were created in about one minute while the same took a couple of hours when 1:1 regular zones were created.
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CLI commands to manage TDPZ Following are a few HPE 3PAR CLI commands relevant to TDPZ. Note that only two of them are control or configure commands and the rest are either one-time setting or commands used to read information from the switch to display on the target side. The general philosophy followed here is that only existing CLI commands are used as far as possible, with minimal changes to add necessary flags to carry target-zoning functionality. Following are brief description of each. For detailed information, refer to HPE 3PAR Smart SAN 1.0 User Guide. SetLicense (to enable Smart SAN) • Used to set HPE Smart SAN license on HPE 3PAR (one-time setting) Showport –par • Used to display HPE Smart SAN status; this can be used to verify if target zoning is enabled on the switch side Createhost • This is the main command used to create a host and associate its target, defining the IT nexus so that appropriate zone can be created automatically Removehost • This can be used to remove a host/initiator from the zone showportdev tzone • This command is primarily used to display zone status and zone details once zones are initiated/configured Some examples: • Create a new host with a single WWN that will be zoned to port 0:8:1 – createhost –port 0:8:1 lincoln 1000A0B3CC1C68BE • Create a new host with multiple WWNs that will be zoned to multiple ports – createhost –port *:8:* lincoln 1000A0B3CC1C68BE 1000A0B3CC1C68BF • Add a new WWN to an existing host and create a relationship to multiple ports – createhost -port 0:8:3,1:8:3 –add lincoln 1000A0B3CC1C68BD • Remove an NSP relationship from a host – removehost –port 0:8:3 lincoln 1000A0B3CC1C68BD • Remove this particular WWN from the host and any NSP associated with it
Best practices • Manually, create active zone set up upfront with HPE StoreFabric B-Series switches; else, HPE 3PAR event log will report “active zone set not configured” error. • Since switch consolidates all zoning commands from a target in a one-minute interval, sending as many commands as possible in that time duration will help in a faster turnaround time. • TDPZ automates a lot of manual commands and if scripts are used on the HPE 3PAR side to send multiple “createhost” commands, it results in significantly less time for configuring zones.
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Topologies HPE Smart SAN–enabled switch firmware and HPE 3PAR OS are required for supporting TDPZ. From a topology or SAN configuration perspective, here are some configuration guidelines as shown in table 1. Refer to HPE 3PAR Smart SAN 1.0 User Guide, SPOCK, and the HPE SAN Design Reference Guide for exact details. Table 1 summarizes configurations supported for HPEN switches and table 2 shows configurations relevant to B-Series switches. Table 1. HPE FlexFabric 59XX use cases Base SAN fabric configuration
Variant
Server connect
HPE 3PAR storage
Switch mode
Single-tier fabric rack servers
Rack server, FC storage
Rack/HBA
Multi-hop fabric, rack servers
Rack server, FCoE/FC, FC storage
Rack/HBA
Native 16 Gb FC
FCF
Single-tier fabric NPV gateway
Rack server, FC NPV gateway, FC storage (target ports to be connected to B-Series switches to support TDPZ)
Rack/HBA
Native 16 Gb FC
Rack/HBA
Storage fabric IRF configurations
Applies to all use cases above
Rack/HBA
Native 16 Gb FC
FCF, NPV
As shown in table 1, a set of use case topology designs has been defined for HPEN switches. These use cases recommend ways to use switches, switch modes, and port types in different server-storage deployment scenarios. As an example, figure 5 shows HPE 5900CP Switch in FCF mode and HPE 3PAR ports connected to the HPE 5900 switches can be used for configuring target-driven peer zones.
Figure 5. Sample HPE 5900CP Switch use case
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As shown in table 2, a set of use case topology designs has been defined for HPE StoreFabric B-Series switches. As an example, figure 6 shows HPE StoreFabric B-Series fabric in a core and edge topology. TDPZ zones can be configured from any HPE 3PAR port in the fabric. Table 2. HPE StoreFabric B-Series use cases Base SAN fabric configuration
Variant
Server connect
Core/edge
All directors, director/rack switches, any combination
HBA
Multi-hop
Any combinations of switches up to 7 hops
Rack/HBA
Access gateway
Access gateway and switch combinations Access gateway—rack module (no target ports on access gateway)
HBA
HPE 3PAR storage
Switch mode
Native 16 Gb FC
Switch
Native 16 Gb FC via HPE B-Series switch
Access gateway
Figure 6. Sample HPE StoreFabric B-Series use case
Terminology FC-CT: Fibre Channel Common Transport (FC-CT) provides a simple, consistent format and behavior when a service provider is accessed for registration and query purposes. FC-GS-x: Fibre Channel Generic Services—this T11 standard deals with a set of generic services that operate at the FC-4 level using FC-CT protocol. Some of the key services are directory service, management service, and time service, and again there can be multiple areas supported under each major service category. As an example, management service includes sub-areas such as fabric zone server, FDMI, fabric configuration server, unzoned name server, and more. There are several versions of this standard available and FC-GS-7 is the latest that is being finalized as of April 2015. FC-LS-x: Fibre Channel Link Services—this is T11 standard (operates at FC-3 level) that deals primarily with extended link services (ELSs) useful for management and control of Fibre Channel systems. Read diagnostic parameters (RDPs) is one such new addition to this standard. FC-LS-3 is the latest version available as of April 2015. FDMI: Fabric device management interface is described in the FC-GS-4 standard. FDMI enables management of devices such as FC host bus adapters (HBAs) through in-band communications. This addition complements the existing FC name server and management server functions.
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GUI: GUI allows users to interact through graphical icons and visual indicators as opposed to text-based interfaces such as CLI. Peer zoning: Peer zoning is managed through the definition of one or more peer zones. A peer zone identifies a principal member through the peer zone attribute and a list of peer members as zone members. The semantic of a peer zone are: peers members are allowed to communicate with the principal member and peer members are not allowed to communicate among themselves (unless allowed by other zones in the zone set). RDP command: An FC command—read diagnostics parameters request an FC Port to return the identified diagnostic parameters that may be used for diagnosis of link- or port-related errors, or degraded conditions associated with the designated FC port. REST: Representational State Transfer (REST) is a software architecture style consisting of guidelines and best practices for creating scalable services. HPE SSMC: HPE StoreServ Management Console is an HPE 3PAR Operating System software. It enables simplicity, usability, and visibility to storage management by allowing the administrator access to all of their HPE 3PAR Storage systems from a single management window, including remote systems used for replication. T11: Technical Committee T11—the committee within InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS), the central U.S. forum dedicated to creating technology standards for the next generation of innovation, responsible for FC interfaces. T11 has been producing interface standards for high-performance and mass storage applications since the 1970s. TDZ/TDPZ: Target-driven zoning (or target-driven peer zoning) enables the target (e.g., array) to configure and enable peer zones. See Peer zoning. Zoning: In storage networking, FC zoning is the partitioning of an FC fabric into smaller subsets to restrict interference, add security, and to simplify management. When a SAN makes available several devices and/or ports to a single device, each system connected to the SAN should only be allowed access to a controlled subset of these devices and ports.
Conclusion HPE Smart SAN for 3PAR is a FC standards-based holistic and centralized software defined networking solution, that gathers beneficial SAN intelligence from HPE StoreFabric FC HBAs, StoreFabric B-Series and HPE FlexFabric 5900 Series Switches to automatically orchestrate a 3PAR all-flash fabric, error-free. This approach significantly helps storage administrators in simplifying end-to-end SAN configuration complexity from the view of an HPE 3PAR Storage Systems that is reliable and faster to deploy than traditional switch 1:1 zoning best practices. TDPZ is one capability in the initial release of HPE Smart SAN, which introduces the most efficient way of configuring zones, effort free. TDPZ is a standards-based in-band protocol that empowers targets and switches to work seamlessly adding value to each other and the overall end-to-end SAN configuration. In addition, the foundational approach to HPE Smart SAN supports FDMI-based device registrations and RDP-based diagnostic data collection. In HPE Smart SAN, this information can be displayed from any HPE Smart SAN-supported switch for establishing detailed configuration information and also for troubleshooting physical layer issues when needed. HPE Smart SAN supports FC fabrics and will support similar capability with other protocols in future releases. What’s more, TDPZ can be deployed very efficiently in new SAN installations and it can coexist with devices that are not HPE Smart SAN-enabled in existing SAN configurations.
Technical white paper
Resources, contacts, or additional links For additional information about HPE Smart SAN 1.0 and upcoming releases, refer to the following documents/links: HPE 3PAR Smart SAN 1.0 User Guide HPE StoreFabric Storage Networking HPE Smart SAN for 3PAR Solutions Brief HPE Smart SAN for 3PAR Video
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© Copyright 2017 Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for Hewlett Packard Enterprise products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. Hewlett Packard Enterprise shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. a00001440ENW, February 2017
