mixed storage platform environment

[Chapter11]

Does anyone have much experience with a mixed environment of SN platforms?

My server is an AIX 5.3 LPAR running on an IBM pSeries unit. I have three AIX storage nodes on remote networks, and have recently added a Windows storage node on another remote network.

The Windows SN is giving me headaches - there are two problems occurring at the moment. This SN has a pair of SAS LTO3 drives, and a nice big chunk of disk space being used as a file-type device.

The first problem has to do with the file-type device (and I have tried using adv_file as well, the same problem occurs). I can label the device, perform backups to it, move data from it to tape, all day long without any problems. The next morning when I come into the office, it has dismounted itself (none of my other file/advfile devices do this), and when I manually mount it, it reports that the volid being read from the label is not found in the media database. If I relabel it, the logs report that the old volume has been deleted from the database, and the deleted volid matches the volid it claimed didn't match.

The second problem also appears to occur overnight, in that the nsrmmd processes on the SN seem to stop responding. The server doesn't complain that they aren't there anymore, but I cannot perform any autochanger moves (eject the tapes and load up another) unless I reboot the SN - stop/start of the Networker services does not resolve this.

Is mixing platforms for SNs a bad idea?

 

[605]

I do not expect a general problem as otherwise there should be a lot such errors reported. I would suggest that you look up the daemon.log file and the Event Log at the SN for obvious problems.

 

[Rif123]

Hi,

I recognise your first problem from sometime at 7.1.X (I think). Any chance you are running a bit old version? In that case you should have a look at the release notes to see when it was fixed.

I have not seen the second problem. I guess when you stop networker that not all daemons get killed. So you could probably have a look and kill them manually instead of rebooting the server. I would again check the version of networker. If you can't solve it then, I guess opening a ticket with support is the way to go.

It shouldn't be any problem with mixing platforms for storage nodes. I've done it many times. The only thing to be carefull about is to use the same block size for all storage nodes, especially if they share a library.