Tag Archives: HP

How to solve the ‘Cache 1’ Backup Power Source (Capacitors) Status = ‘Charging’. Warning

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One of our HP Storevirtual P4530 server was giving the following Warning.

‘Cache 1’ Backup Power Source (Capacitors) Status = ‘Charging’. WARNING (E01020401)

When this error occurs the performance of the Storevirtual Storage environment is terrible. Very high latency’s with read and write.

This was the second time in a few months’ time. The first time HP replaced the Cache Battery. It could be the same problem, so I contacted HP support. It wasn’t, they told me the following.

With a Firmware earlier than 5.42 of the RAID controller there is an issue with the charging and discharging of the cache battery. When the warning occurs the Cache Battery is in an error state and therefor disabled. The HP Storevirtual P4530 is using a HP P420i RAID controller. For more information see HP Document id: c024258375

To check if the Cache Battery is disabled create a Support Log bundle of the Storage node. Then check the ADUReport and look for the Cache Disable Code. See screenshots.

Advice from HP Support is to upgrade to a supported level. In my case 5.42 for the P420i RAID controller.

To verify which firmware is supported and which isn’t see the HP Storevirtual Storage Hardware Firmware matrix. This document can be found at the HP SPOCK see link. If you have any questions, please contact HP Support. I’m not an HP employee….

Thanks HP Support for this fix.

High write latency on HP StoreVirtual environment with VMware vSphere 5.1

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Last week I started a new project with six new HP StoreVirtual storage nodes (HP P4330G3) and four VMware vSphere 5.1U1 ESXi servers. After successfully installing VMware vCenter 5.1U1 I started to notice a big write latency issue on my freshly created storage LUNs. The latency’s ran up to 200ms and sometimes even higher. This was not normal, so I started searching.

First I thought it was the networking. We are using two brand new Cisco 3750x switches, and two existing ones. After a couple of tests and asking the network guys if there is something wrong we concluded that network wise everything was ok. But why the terrible performance on the Storevirtual cluster.

I changed some networking configurations on my VMware ESXi hosts. Still the same high latencies. This was also happening when I copy files from one datastore to another datastore.

To rule out VMware I created a separate test LUN and connected a physical Windows 2008R2 server to that LUN. I started to copy some big files. Again a very high latency, even up to 400ms.

See screenshot of the Write Latency when copying a big file from Windows 2008R2 to the test LUN. This is a HP StoreVirtual problem I concluded.


I contacted HP Support and explained the problem. They asked me to create a Support Bundle and send it to them. The Support Engineer thought it was an RAID cache problem. There are some units shipped out with the wrong cache settings configured he told me.

So I created the Support Bundle. And send it out to HP. I am a very curious guy and wanted to check out if this was really the problem, so i started searching in the support bundle.

I opened the support bundle file, and located a file called ADUReport.htm which is located deep in the support bundle in a vendorlogs.tar file.

I try to explain where..

  1. Open the file [IP_of_storagenode.tar.gz]
  2. Open mnt\logs\vendorlogs.tar
  3. Open hpadu\ADUReport.htm

This file contains the complete configuration of the StoreVirtual server. Look for the Smart Array P420i subject and check the Cache size settings. 

Screenshot of the wrong settings.


In my case this is not set correctly. I also checked the other nodes. And some of them where correctly configured. 

Screenshot of the correct settings.


In total, three nodes where wrong and three where correct.

After changing the settings in de RAID controller my latency’s disappeared.. And everything was performing normally again. See screenshot.

Conclusion, when there is a high write latency on all your LUN’s. Create a support bundle and check the cache settings of the RAID controller. This could be the problem…

Thanks HP for your support and the fix…

How to solve HP P4000 Cache Status Corrupt

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I was working on an HP P4300 Lefthand SAN solution and trying to create a management group when I got an error about an nvram card that is not normal, see screenshot.

clip_image001

When I run the All Tests at the diagnostics Tasks, the Cache Status was Corrupt.

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I searched the internet for a solution and I didn’t find anything. I contacted HP about this problem and they send me an e-mail with the solution.

The solution is as follows. Go to the Storage tab on the node with the problem. Select Reconfigure RAID…

Note! This was a new HP P4300 device, brand new out of the box with no data on it. If there is data on it, please contact HP for another solution.

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Select the correct RAID configuration, in my case RAID 5. Acknowledge the warning. This takes a few minutes, and when it finishes, go to the diagnostics again. Do the same diagnostic test and now the corrupt cache error message is gone. Problem solved.

HP MSA2324SA Firmware update loop

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This week I was working on a project with an HP MSA 2324 SA storage box. After unboxing it and checking the software I discovered that the Firmware was a bit old, so I checked the HP site for updates and yes there was a newer version for it. I downloaded the new firmware and I installed the firmware with the HP Storage Management Utility. Controller Module A is flashed correctly. The Controller Module A starts updating Controller Module B, this is an automated process. After a couple of minutes the firmware update was complete, see screen shot. 

At first sight it looks good, but suddenly my explorer shows the following screen.

And this loops, Controller Module A sees that Controller Module B has an older Management Controller Code version. That’s why Controller Module A starts the update process for Controller Module B. The Flash process on Controller Module B goes bad so it looks.

How to resolve this problem?

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HP Sizer for Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 R2

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HP released an Sizer tool for Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 R2. Source : http://h71019.www7.hp.com/ActiveAnswers/us/en/sizers/microsoft-hyper-v2008.html

The HP Sizer for Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 R2 is an automated, downloadable tool that provides quick and helpful sizing guidance for “best-fit” HP server and storage configurations running in a Hyper-V R2 environment. The tool is intended to assist with the planning of a Hyper-V R2 virtual server deployment project. It enables the user to quickly compare different solution configurations and produces a customizable server and storage solution complete with a detail Bill of Materials (BOM) that includes part numbers and prices.

The HP Sizer for Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 R2 allows users to create new solutions, open already existing solutions, or use other types of performance data collecting tools, such as the Microsoft Assessment and Planning tool (MAP), to build rich Hyper-V R2 configurations based on HP server and storage technology. The tool allows rapid comparison of Hyper-V R2 characterizations using various HP server and storage choices.

Upgrading ESX 4.0 to 4.0 Update 1 on HP Proliant systems can fail

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Upgrading ESX 4.0 to 4.0 Update 1 on HP Proliant systems can fail or time out and leave the host in an unusable state if the host has HP Insight Management Agents running

Symptoms

On HP Proliant systems, when attempting to upgrade ESX 4.0 to ESX 4.0 Update 1 (U1), you may experience these symptoms:
  • Upgrade operation may fail or hang and can result in an incomplete installation
  • Upon reboot, the host that was being upgraded may be left in an inconsistent state and may display a purple diagnostic screen with the following error:

COS Panic: Int3 @ mp_register_ioapic

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Installing HP Insight Management Agents on VMWare ESX 4 server

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Installing HP Insight Management Agents on ESX Server

In this case, I am using HP Insight Management Agents for VMware 8.2.5 (available here). I am also using a HP DL380 G6 Proliant servers with VMware versions 4.0.

Note: do not include the quotes (”) when entering commands.

PREPARE:

  1. Download the correct Insight Manager agents for VMware.
  2. Unzip the tgz file using WinRAR or something similar, and peruse the readme for up-to-date info.
  3. Using the ILO utility or the physical console, hit Alt-F1, login as root at the command line.
  4. To allow root ssh access in ESX as well as enable sshd client access (SFTP, SSH), we have to change the local sshd_config file.
  5. At the command line, type: “vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config”
  6. Go to the line that says PermitRootLogin, change from “no” to “yes”
  7. If you are unfamiliar with vi, use arrow keys to navigate, put cursor on the “n” of “no”, hit the i key to insert, then type in “yes” and delete/backspace “no”. Then hit ESC twice to exit Insert mode. Type colon (:) to get the in-editor command line, type “wq!” and hit enter. This will save the doc and exit vi.
  8. Back at the command line type: “service sshd restart”, hit enter.
  9. After the service restarts, type “logout” to exit the console, hit alt-f11 to go back to the esx screen.

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