Installing a Four Port Fiber I/O Module in an EMC CX4-120

Bill Gross (IT Solutions) — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 18:11:01 +0000

I recently needed to install a new I/O module in an EMC Celerra NS120. Unfortunately it didn’t ship with documentation, or even just a link to documentation. So, I ran a search of EMC’s website. Nothing. Well, I figured there had to be SOME documentation, so I opened a chat. I’m comforted by the fact that it also took the tech a while to find the documentation and tell me where to get it. See, it’s actually not a static document, it’s “Customized Documentation”, which is maybe why the search didn’t return any valid results. You can get there by logging onto http://powerlink.emc.com, selecting Support –> Product and Diagnostic Tools –> Clariion Tools (our Celerra uses a Clariion back end, and the four port fiber card that supports host fiber connectivity goes in the Clariion). You’ll be brought to a web page with “Install” section at the bottom. Under the “Install” section, there’s a link to “Customized Documentation: CLARiiON CX4 Series Storage Systems Support.” On the next page, click the “Add or replace hardware” link under “Storage-system tasks” and you’ll be presented with a nice little wizard that you fill out to create your document.

I followed the document, which refers to a Unisphere Wizard. I ran the Wizard, inserted the cards, let the SPs reboot and then followed the documentation steps to verify the installation. Although the fiber card itself seemed to be functioning, the fiber ports were in an “uninitialized” state. I reviewed the documentation again: nope, didn’t miss a step. I searched EMCs website. Nothing. I put the SAN in engineering mode (I had a different problem earlier with this SAN, and the support tech put had put it in engineering mode to perform some simple task, so I thought I’d give it a shot here. I may talk about that in another post.). Even in engineering mode I couldn’t find a way to initialize the fiber ports.

Eventually, a Google search returned a forum entry for a somewhat related problem on a different model CX4. The solution? Run the wizard again to finalize the installation! Really? So, I ran the Wizard. It politely told me that it found uninitialized fiber ports on a module recently inserted in the system, and it would initialize them for me. About thirty minutes later, after another round of SP reboots, the ports were initialized. Couldn’t the Wizard have told me that it would need (or even just, may need) to run again to complete the installation? How about the “Customized Document”? Couldn’t it have told me that? Hey, I would even accept just a little support blurb that could be found by typing ‘fiber ports uninitialized new module install’.

I thought I was done. Nope. After zoning the switch, the SAN still didn’t see my server’s HBAs so that I could register them. Updated server HBA drivers, EMC PowerPath, etc; no joy. Can anyone guess why I couldn’t see the servers in Unisphere to assign them to a Storage Group? Yes, I was still in engineering mode! I logged out of Unisphere and back in, and voila! My servers were there. But really, I only went into engineering mode because nothing else was working. I always thought engineering mode was simply an “Open Up All Admin Access” feature. I didn’t think it would RESTRICT functionality.

This little incident was part of a project to migrate from a Clariion CX300 SAN to a Celerra supporting both Fiber Channel host connectivity as well as NFS for their VMware cluster. The SAN is now running beautifully, supporting 4 ESX hosts connecting via NFS, and 3 Windows Servers connected to LUNs via Fiber, and it was done without purchasing expensive vendor consulting services. If you would like techical experts at IT Solutions to help with your next SAN project, visit our website at http://www.itsolutions-inc.com.

If you must know, to get into engineering mode from within Unisphere, press Ctrl+Shift+F12 , then enter the password messner. Use it at your own risk.

Bill Gross, Technical Services Director
MCSE: Security, RHCE, VCP4
IT Solutions Consulting, Inc.
bill.gross@itsolutions-inc.com
www.itsolutions-inc.com

Troubleshooting fiber with… your phone?

Justin Ozol (IT Solutions) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 01:01:30 +0000

I came across a cool trick recently while troubleshooting an LC fiber connection. Essentially I had a 100 foot fiber run which had been cabled by a third party, and two Dell 2824 switches I needed to link via transceivers. With everything in place I was not getting any connection lights. I tried reseating the transceivers, swapping fiber cables, etc. without any luck, and had begun to think I might be unable to proceed with my task of linking two server closets. When I called Dell to troubleshoot the transceivers, the technician asked me if I had a camera in my phone (luckily it’s 2009 and I’m outfitted with the latest in cellular technology). He directed me to turn on the camera and point it at either end of my fiber termination; by doing so I was able to pick up the light coming from both my LC transceiver and fiber cable! Further, it showed me the solution to my problem was simply taking apart my LC cable ends to swap cable placement. Crisis averted.

To illustrate, I have uploaded some pictures of what the naked eye was unable to detect. The bluish aura is what you should expect to see in a working configuration.

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Installing a Four Port Fiber I/O Module in an EMC CX4-120

Troubleshooting fiber with… your phone?