SAN config

[sobrique]

You know, it always rather scares me a little bit when I'm reconfiguring our SAN (Storage Area Network).
It's kinda 9Tb of disk, attached to ... well a lot of our _really ultra critical_ servers.

And so doing configuration operations which are basically unmap, and split apart this volume, rebuild it and reassign it always have the thought of 'now if I'd done that on the _wrong_ volume I'd have completely fucked $SERVER'.

Or worse, done something really stupid like write disable the entire system. That would have been bad too.

Never mind eh? They're brave enough to trust me to do it :).

I have to say, this is yet another situation though, where the GUI is such a bag of arse it's untrue compared to the command line.

example - GUI is java bloaty. To do the job above I'd have to do it in separate stages, and I'd have to wait 1-2 hours for each to complete because it'll not let you interfere in a configuration operation.
So that'd be unmap.
Dissolve device.
Build meta
Map to new FA port.
Configure zoning and volume access.

Would take about 6 hours. (to be fair, the dissolve and build meta are the biggies there).

The CLI I can do the same thing in 3 stages:
unmap (10 minutes)
dissolve and reassemble meta (ok, this still takes time)
Map and zone and access.

But I can do it as a single script, so it 'just does it' rather than me having to babysit it.

Which is nice.

Comments

[jorune.livejournal.com]

The wonders of Live support, the ability to fix/fsck major sections of the underlying business is amazing. It's an area of experience that can easily provide a rush of adrenalin and very high risk/reward payoff in personal confidence. When trouble strikes and someone goes wrong it can feel bad, real bad like a motherfscker, but when it goes right then it feels heroic with a touch of euphoria. JMS described it in Babylon 5 with a season 4 episode title 'The Exercise of Vital Powers'. Few other jobs can give you that immediacy of challenge and resolution on such a regular basis, the honing of mental acuity, fast reaction and development of the great Zen mindset "Making Good Decisions". You only go surfing and skydiving when the weather's right but you can do live support in any condition. :-)

[xarrion.livejournal.com]

although during heavy thunderstorms is probably not a good plan...