IBM DS8000 manual Microsoft Windows 2000/2003, HBA and operating system settings, SDD for Windows

Microsoft Windows 2000/2003

Note: Because Windows NT is no longer supported by Microsoft (and DS8000 support is provided on RPQ only), we do not discuss Windows NT here.

DS8000 supports FC attachment to Microsoft Windows 2000/2003 servers. For details regarding operating system versions and HBA types see the DS8000 Interoperability Matrix, available at:

http://www.ibm.com/servers/storage/disk/ds8000/interop.html

The support includes cluster service and acting as a boot device. Booting is supported currently with host adapters QLA23xx (32 bit or 64 bit) and LP9xxx (32 bit only). For a detailed discussion about SAN booting (advantages, disadvantages, potential difficulties, and troubleshooting) we highly recommend the Microsoft document Boot from SAN in Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 Server, available at:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/storage/technologies/bootfromsan/bootfromsanin

windows.mspx

HBA and operating system settings

Depending on the host bus adapter type, several HBA and driver settings may be required. Refer to the DS8000 Host Systems Attachment Guide, SC26-7628, for the complete description of these settings. Although the volumes can be accessed with other settings too, the values recommended there have been tested for robustness.

To ensure optimum availability and recoverability when you attach a storage unit to a Windows 2000/2003 host system, we recommend setting the TimeOutValue value associated with the host adapters to 60 seconds. The operating system uses the TimeOutValue parameter to bind its recovery actions and responses to the disk subsystem. The value is stored in the Windows registry at:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Disk\TimeOutValue

The value has the data type REG-DWORDand should be set to 0x0000003c hexadecimal (60 decimal).

SDD for Windows

An important task with a Windows host is the installation of the SDD multipath driver. Ensure that SDD is installed before adding additional paths to a device. Otherwise, the operating system could lose the ability to access existing data on that device. For details, refer to the IBM TotalStorage Multipath Subsystem Device Driver User’s Guide, SC30-4096. Here we highlight only some important items:

￿SDD does not support I/O load balancing with Windows 2000 server clustering (MSCS). For Windows 2003, SDD 1.6.0.0 (or later) is required for load balancing with MSCS.

￿When booting from the FC storage systems, special restrictions apply:

–With Windows 2000, you should not use the same HBA as both the FC boot device and the clustering adapter. The reason for this is the usage of SCSI bus resets by MSCS to break up disk reservations during quorum arbitration. Because a bus reset cancels all pending I/O operations to all FC disks visible to the host via that port, an MSCS-initiated bus reset may cause operations on the C:\ drive to fail.

366DS8000 Series: Concepts and Architecture