New Dell EMC Unity lineup: Unity XT 380F, 480F, 680F and 880F?

Posted by on April 25, 2019 2 comments

While looking for something totally different I stumbled on a few new Unity XT (?) model numbers.

On this dellemc.com website I spotted some Chinese publication on this new model.

[edit] The new and working website is now working: www.dellemc.com.

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Cisco MDS CLI commands when checking for defects or signal degradation

Posted by on April 9, 2019 No comments
Cisco MDS

Checking the environment of a switch:

  • show environment temp = what are the temperatures of the intake(s) and outlet(s)
  • show environment power = are the PSUs still working fine?
  • show environment fan = are the fans still working fine?

Checking for errors and signal degradation

  • show interface fc1/10 counters = show all standard counters for port fc1/10
  • show interface fc1/10 counters details = show the detailed counters for port fc1/10
  • show interface counters = show all standard counters for all ports
  • show interface detail-counters = show the detailed counters for all ports
  • show interface detail-counters | i CRC = show the detailed counters for all ports which contain the text “CRC”
  • show interface transceiver calibrations = show the specs of all SFPs
  • show interface transceiver details = show the specs and power details of all SFPs
  • show interface transceiver details | i “x Power” = show the current Rx/Tx power of all SFPs

Common knowledges dictates that fiber optice patches need to be cleaned with proper equipment to prevent unnecessary signal loss. See this blog post for more details on how and why to keep optic cables clean.

How to enable a replica-LUN on Unity

Posted by on February 21, 2019 No comments
EMC Unity

LUN-replication on Unity works slightly different than it previously did on VNX or even Clariion. In these older generations, when you deleted the mirrorview Mirror Group, both the primary and secondary LUNs became usable as separate entities.

In Unity the secondary LUN is a different beast. First of all: in Unity you can only set up replication from the primary Unity/LUN. The process on the source-Unity will create a LUN-replica and a replication session on both Unitys.

But what happens when you need hosts to access the secondary LUN? A failover works as designed and the previous secondary LUN becomes writable, but when you break the replication session, the replica-LUN has a flag that needs to be reset, but you’ll need the CLI to do that. This is how I did it:

  • In Unisphere I listed all LUNs and I made sure to include the “CLI ID” column
  • I noticed the ID of the LUN I need to grant access to is “res_56”
  • I started PUTTY and made sure logging to a file was configured so I could easily browse / search the possibly large amount of data some commands can produce, especially “-detail” commands tend to be very explicit
  • Log in as the “service” user to the Unity command line

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How to expand a LUN on VNX using the CLI

Posted by on November 16, 2018 No comments

Once in a while you come across a storage system that cannot be managed through the GUI or you just want to script or use the CLI to perform management tasks on a VNX. Recently I came across an old VNX2 which GUI wasn’t responding the way I’d like, so I decided to use the CLI instead.

In this particular case I needed to expand a LUN.

First I listed the current size:

naviseccli -h [SPA/B ip#] -user [user] -password [password] -scope [scope] getlun [LUN#]

Then I expanded the LUN to the new size:

naviseccli -h [SPA/B ip#] -user [user] -password [password] -scope [scope] lun -expand -l [LUN#] -capacity [new capacity] -sq [mb/gb/tb/bc]

Pay attention to the number and the prefix! It could be a lot of work if you needed to resize a LUN from 50GB to 60GB and instead GB, you used TB…..

And finally I checked if the new size was actually available:

naviseccli -h [SPA/B ip#] -user [user] -password [password] -scope [scope] getlun [LUN#]

Sometimes CLI is so much easier than the GUI!

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How to remove an offline VNX from a Unisphere domain

Posted by on September 3, 2018 No comments

When decommissioning a VNX, I recently forgot to remove the array from the existing domain. After the VNX was “unracked and unstacked” I saw my mistake and tried to remove it from the domain by using the “add/remove systems” in Unisphere, but the remove-button was grayed out. Even engineering mode didn’t help me.

There is another way to remove unwanted VNXs from a domain! You might have guessed it already, because it’s by using the command line!

First you’ll have to find out what existing VNX is the domain master. This can be done in Unisphere by looking up the current master. Click on “Domains” followed by “Select Domain Master”.

The outcome will show you the list of domain in the domain as well as the current master.

Now you can open a command line box and enter the following command to deleted the unwanted VNX from the domain:

naviseccli -Address -User -Password -Scope 2 domain -remove