Hi there,
We are totally new to IBM hardware, and the last few weeks we have been trying to navigate the forest of IBM software and documentations. We have gotten quite lost a few times, but we are making slow progress.
There are, however, a number of issues that we are still strugling with.
We started out downloading the newest versions of various IBM CD's, thinking it would be benificial to flash everything to the newest version, and get our hands on the latest versions of various software. Serverguide 7.3.02, UpdateXpress 4.01, Director 4.22, UpdateXpress Server, ServerRAID v8.00.
Well it turned out the ServerRAID CD's are just plain WIERD... the versions having nothing at all to do with being more 'up to date', but instead being bound more to the ServeRAID controller you actually have. However.. the version of the ServeRAID manager IS newest on the 8.00 CD (8.00.19), even though the last Windows version of the same app can only be found on the ServeRAID 7.10b CD, but its a lower version: 7.10.18
IBM site is of course NO help trying to understand all of this.
Anyway, to build the cluster enviroment, we ran a document that seemed reasonably up to date; The ServiceRAID User's Reference for all ServeRAID controllers up to the 6 series. This document is called SRAID.PDF (as are many others by the way), but this particular one can be found on the ServeRAID 7.10b CD.
So, we been happily following this guide, specificly chapter 3 - Installing the IBM ServeRAID cluster solution, and so far have managed to get our controllers configured up quite nicely.
We are using an EXP400 SCSI enclosure by the way.
We are currently tackling 3 issues.
The first is that the ServeRAID manager application for windows (version 7.10.18) doesnt seem to want to connect to the other instance of the app running on the other server, to do a cluster configuration check. Its failing on authentication it seems. You can add other Servers into the ServeRAID manager view, but when we try to add Server B, to the console running on Server A, it fails on credentials, accepting none of our domain or localadmin creds.
Another problem we have with the Windows ServeRAID manager, is that server B doesnt identify the shared drives in the enclosure as 'reserved' .. as it should be. We have turned on the 'view shared drives' option, but this doesnt help. Server B sees the disks that are owned by A, as 'ready' .. like they are unconfigured and available for creating arrays on.. even though they already contain arrays.
Finally, probably due to a wierd Windows update on W2K that installed over the weekend (stuck the server in the wrong OU so it got automatic updates! damnit!) (we havnt installed SP1 yet), the ServeRAID manager application now refuses to start correctly at all. Its almost like its a java problem, and we have installed the latest Java runtime just to see if that would help, but to no avail. The ServerRAID manager just halts at the splash screen.
Now... we have spent the last few days getting more and more lost in documentation and the like on the IBM site.. it really is a mess.. but on thing I ran into is what IBM calls the "IBM ServeRAID Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Clustering Solution version 1.00".
Now currenty, I still have NO idea what this is exactly.. my best guess currently is that its some kind of version of the ServerGuide CD... we are currently downloading the ISO at a staggering 5kb/s, so we will see in the morning.
Does anyone here have experience with this Clustinging Solutions thing? And what its useful for? One thing that disturbed me a bit was that it suggested I would actually have to DOWNGRADE the firmware and bios of our ServeRAID-6m controllers? Surely that cant be right?
Any and all comments would be MUCH appreciated!
Greets,
Robert
We are totally new to IBM hardware, and the last few weeks we have been trying to navigate the forest of IBM software and documentations. We have gotten quite lost a few times, but we are making slow progress.
There are, however, a number of issues that we are still strugling with.
We started out downloading the newest versions of various IBM CD's, thinking it would be benificial to flash everything to the newest version, and get our hands on the latest versions of various software. Serverguide 7.3.02, UpdateXpress 4.01, Director 4.22, UpdateXpress Server, ServerRAID v8.00.
Well it turned out the ServerRAID CD's are just plain WIERD... the versions having nothing at all to do with being more 'up to date', but instead being bound more to the ServeRAID controller you actually have. However.. the version of the ServeRAID manager IS newest on the 8.00 CD (8.00.19), even though the last Windows version of the same app can only be found on the ServeRAID 7.10b CD, but its a lower version: 7.10.18
IBM site is of course NO help trying to understand all of this.
Anyway, to build the cluster enviroment, we ran a document that seemed reasonably up to date; The ServiceRAID User's Reference for all ServeRAID controllers up to the 6 series. This document is called SRAID.PDF (as are many others by the way), but this particular one can be found on the ServeRAID 7.10b CD.
So, we been happily following this guide, specificly chapter 3 - Installing the IBM ServeRAID cluster solution, and so far have managed to get our controllers configured up quite nicely.
We are using an EXP400 SCSI enclosure by the way.
We are currently tackling 3 issues.
The first is that the ServeRAID manager application for windows (version 7.10.18) doesnt seem to want to connect to the other instance of the app running on the other server, to do a cluster configuration check. Its failing on authentication it seems. You can add other Servers into the ServeRAID manager view, but when we try to add Server B, to the console running on Server A, it fails on credentials, accepting none of our domain or localadmin creds.
Another problem we have with the Windows ServeRAID manager, is that server B doesnt identify the shared drives in the enclosure as 'reserved' .. as it should be. We have turned on the 'view shared drives' option, but this doesnt help. Server B sees the disks that are owned by A, as 'ready' .. like they are unconfigured and available for creating arrays on.. even though they already contain arrays.
Finally, probably due to a wierd Windows update on W2K that installed over the weekend (stuck the server in the wrong OU so it got automatic updates! damnit!) (we havnt installed SP1 yet), the ServeRAID manager application now refuses to start correctly at all. Its almost like its a java problem, and we have installed the latest Java runtime just to see if that would help, but to no avail. The ServerRAID manager just halts at the splash screen.
Now... we have spent the last few days getting more and more lost in documentation and the like on the IBM site.. it really is a mess.. but on thing I ran into is what IBM calls the "IBM ServeRAID Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Clustering Solution version 1.00".
Now currenty, I still have NO idea what this is exactly.. my best guess currently is that its some kind of version of the ServerGuide CD... we are currently downloading the ISO at a staggering 5kb/s, so we will see in the morning.
Does anyone here have experience with this Clustinging Solutions thing? And what its useful for? One thing that disturbed me a bit was that it suggested I would actually have to DOWNGRADE the firmware and bios of our ServeRAID-6m controllers? Surely that cant be right?
Any and all comments would be MUCH appreciated!
Greets,
Robert