Dual primarys on on a single SAN

[OneTepidFiasco]

I have 4 servers tied into a SAN network which is connected to a Compaq SSL2020. 3 of the machines are in a domain and the 4th is in a seperate DMZ zone. I had the 4th running backups for the past month, but when I went to install Arc Serve on the 3 domain machines, the device change disappeared from all 4 machines for both Arc Serve as well as Win 2k Device Manager. Is it possible to have two primary servers (SAN Option) on a single tape library.

 

[fritz4000]

No, you can only have one primary server in the SAN as far as I am aware.

 

[Nauthiz]

I have spent many hours fixing our temperamental san option. While win2k /NT sees the fibre channel scsi devices, arcserve primary and secondaries send packets across the LAN to communicate with and configure each other.

So if you had two unconnected LANs you could run multiple primaries in theory provided that all the tape engines on one side or the other were shut down while the other servers were backing up.

In fact you could probably still do this on one LAN but it would get tricky alternating the tape services automatically.

I have not tried running the SAN option cross domain.

 

[dtolman]

If the device is disappearing from the Windows 2000 device manager, the problem is outside of ARCserve since it doesn't tie into that at all, and is probably a problem on the SAN itself...

Worse comes to worse, try rebooting the various pieces of hardware on the SAN, starting at the tape device, and working your way back to the server...

 

[OneTepidFiasco]

I went back and looked at the relase notes for the SAN option and in the small print, CA directs that you do not set up more than one primary on a single FC/AC. The result is that the registry key for the tape changer only (not the tape drives themselves) has been deleted. I am attempting to restore the registry key by importing it from another machine.

 

[ARCguru]

YOu can have one primary server per Fibre ZONE. Therefore if you have one FABRIC you will need to zone off the libraries. You don't want the primary server trying to lock the other device so a decent SAN ZONE will prevent this.