SSMC Customer Feedback

[apol]

Hi,

I just tried to determine if volumes are primary or secondary of their RC-Group, but I can't find it in SSMC. All I find is Remote Copy "Yes" when I select "Capabilities" in the maximized left pane in the "Volumes" - Section of SSMC.

By looking through the different possible selections in the left and the right pane, I discovered that both the primary and the secondary say "Mode Read/Write". Shouldn't the Secondary be read only??

We have PeerPersistence configured, and I thought only when switching over the secondary get's read/write enabled?

It's the same with both InformOs-Versions in use here: 3.2.1 MU3 and 3.2.2 eMU2.

[usmankidwai]

Hi tcolbert,
Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
This will be fixed in the next Major release of SSMC planned for later this year.

Usman Kidwai
HPE 3PAR Storage | Product Management

Do we know if HP are still monitoring this thread.

As it is supposed to be the way forward, I have been trying to push SSMC with my customers but yet again I have found another issue in SSMC. As we all probably know, when you upgrade from 3.1.2 to 3.1.3 and above, the Persona for Windows 2008 / 2012 should be changed from 2 to 15. The Windows 2008 / 2012 implementation guide clearly states that this is in online procedure. However, SSMC 2.4 won't let you do this online.

When I know a customer is having this upgrade carried out, I am telling them to get used to SSMC and then we always seem to hit an issue with it!

IMC and CLI don't have any issues with this host persona switch.

(I am happy with CLI but some customers who are having the upgrade done prefer GUI).

[wbbouldin]

Richard
About SSMC Reports

You say : use the Exported Volumes - Compare by Performance Statistics" template... and then you can "group by" host, VV, or both.

But I do not have a template "Exported Volumes - Compare by Performance Statistics" but only templates "Exported Volumes Performance" without the compare option.

We have SSMC 2.4 and OS 3.2.1 (MU2)

That report template shows up when the array is running OS 3.2.2 or later. It's a feature of the on-node System Reporter in addition to SSMC so that's why it's not showing up for you.

[wbbouldin]

I just tried to determine if volumes are primary or secondary of their RC-Group, but I can't find it in SSMC. All I find is Remote Copy "Yes" when I select "Capabilities" in the maximized left pane in the "Volumes" - Section of SSMC.

Try selecting the Remote Copy Groups page from the main menu. Then select the Volume Pairs, Source Volumes, and Target Volumes views in the right-side drop down view list for the selected RC group. They should provide the detailed information you're after.

[apol]

Just encountered this error message when creating a vv-set:

Unable to create virtual volume set <name_of_set>
The name already exists on the system as a host set or virtual volume set.

Of course there already is a host-set of the same name - it's the cluster name after all. Imc and cli have no problem with this setup, we use this since 2012 on all our 3pars. Why doesn't ssmc allow this?

[apol]

I'm wondering why ssmc appends ".r" to all the secondary vv's names it creates automatically. This makes scripting more complicated imho - can I prevent this from happening?

And the RemoteCopy-part is strange, it makes me select "User CPG" and "Copy CPG" not only for the non-existent secondary vv (which makes perfectly sense), but for the already existing primary vv as well.

[wbbouldin]

@apol

Unable to create virtual volume set <name_of_set>
The name already exists on the system as a host set or virtual volume set.

SSMC 2.4 has a limitation regarding set names. This limitation will be removed in the next release.

[wbbouldin]

@apol

I'm wondering why ssmc appends ".r" to all the secondary vv's names it creates automatically. This makes scripting more complicated imho - can I prevent this from happening?

The current alternative is to use manual creation of the remote volumes. That way, you can completely control the volume names on the remote 3PAR. I'll add an enhancement request to define the volume name on the destination array.

And the RemoteCopy-part is strange, it makes me select "User CPG" and "Copy CPG" not only for the non-existent secondary vv (which makes perfectly sense), but for the already existing primary vv as well.

Yeah, this is a bit tricky. The CPGs on the source side are used when a switchover/failover occurs and additional volumes are automatically created on that array. Defining the CPGs up front clarifies which CPGs will be used should that happen. I'll ask that the tool tip be enhanced to make this clearer.

[apol]

wbbouldin, thank you very much for your quick reply & clarification!!

[BenConrad]

Brand new 3Par user here. Using SSMC 2.4_QR482-11102 on Windows 2012 R2.

There is a problemw with the ping test when using VLANs

We use multiple VLANS for each physical iSCSI port, ping from cli works fine:

3PAR01 cli% controliscsiport ping 5 xxx.yyy.90.13 -vlan 500 0:2:1
Ping succeeded

However, a ping using the UI fails as seen from the attached screen shot. I think the issue is the UI is not asking for a VLAN ID, which is required.

If I try the cli without using the -vlan switch I get the exact same error as the UI:
controliscsiport ping 5 xxx.yyy.90.13 0:2:1
controliscsiport Error: 5 64-byte ping packets sent to xxx.yyy.90.13; 0 packets received