[cisco-voip] 7825-I4 RAID and HDD strange behaviour or not !!!

Tue Feb 14 13:39:47 EST 2012

hi wes..

thanx on your support..

if we're hitting this bug, then i'm pleased that i've passed sanity check
regarding RAID1 expected behavior - :-)..although i would like to bu sure
we're hitting this so i can explain it to the customer  and to be sure
that's the core issue..

but i'm a little bit confused about two things and it would be great if you
can clarify..

W.S. Net result is any missing drive causes "unsupported platform". Let your
Cisco account team know this is a problem. Get your TAC case attached to
this to provide more evidence of customer impact.  This is all a software
limitation that could be overcome with sufficient motivation.

S.DJ. do i understand you correctly?..you mean, that we should inform our
cisco account so they could push it and ask for enhancement which could be
linked to bug CSCtd86222 severity 6 - enhancement..

we're going to do that, although i'm not sure how can we describe
non-functional RAID just as an enhacement..it looks much more severe to
me..since customer who bought servers with more then one HDDs ( all other
then 7816 ) don't have redundancy..in our case we have a failed publisher
beacuse of one failed HDD..

so, in this case i suppose motivation is drive from number of enhancement
requests - :-)..

W.S. Otherwise, the 7825 hardware uses a rather poor implementation of RAID
IMHO.  Technically it is mirrored but we just do not see the same level of
reliability in that platform.  You are still facing a hardware failure and
we must look to IBM to resolve that

S.DJ. what do you mean by that that we're still facing HW failure?..since
we're having new server, with new HDDs, and the system is fully operational
until we pull out any of HDDs ( while server is shit down )..RAID is in
operational state, everything looks fine, until one HDD is pulled out..if
the left one is pulled out ( primary one ) we don't even have bootable
device and if right one is pulled out we have unsupported hardware issue..if
you think we still have HW issue what should we tell TAC and IBM..it's new
hardware and it's behaving exactly the same as the old one..then it should
issue on all the servers..

so, the bottom line is, do you think we should just ask our cisco account to
push it our we should push IBM or TAC for any further troubleshooting?..

thanx..

regards..

Sinisa Djokic 

System Engineer
CCIE #25996 Voice

MDS Informaticki inzenjering
Milutina Milankovica 7d
11070 Novi Beograd, Serbia
Tel:  +381 11 2015 200  +381 11 2015 200 , 2015 273
Fax: +381 11 3194 954
www.mds.rs
sdjokic at mds.rs

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From: Wes Sisk [mailto:wsisk at cisco.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 5:09 PM
To: Sinisa Djokic
Cc: 'Cisco VOIP'
Subject: Re: [cisco-voip] 7825-I4 RAID and HDD strange behaviour or not !!!

Sinisa,

CallManager hot issues RSS feed is your friend:

https://supportforums.cisco.com/docs/DOC-5727

In the CallManager feed there is this well known defect:

Absence of a single physical disk is preventing License Manager to start,
Open CSCtd86222Symptom:

License Manager doesn't startup after rebooting a server.

Conditions:

CUCM Server will prompt about a Hardware Configuration Failure if one of the
drives from either logical drive arrays are missing. If the customer chooses
to continue License Manager service will never startup. Lack of License
Manager on the Publisher node prevents any administrative changes being
performed like adding a new phone or deleting.

Workaround:

Ensure all 4 drives are plugged in to the server even if they are
failed/defunct drives.

Net result is any missing drive causes "unsupported platform". Let your
Cisco account team know this is a problem. Get your TAC case attached to
this to provide more evidence of customer impact.  This is all a software
limitation that could be overcome with sufficient motivation.

Otherwise, the 7825 hardware uses a rather poor implementation of RAID IMHO.
Technically it is mirrored but we just do not see the same level of
reliability in that platform.  You are still facing a hardware failure and
we must look to IBM to resolve that.

/wes

On Feb 14, 2012, at 10:43 AM, Sinisa Djokic wrote:

hi group..

does anybody have expertise on this matter..

maybe wes or ryan have inside info..

we had a TAC case with failed HDD and problematic RAID controller in
MCS-7825-I4 server running CUCM 7.1.5..

the symptom happend when we shutdown the server in order to check what IBR
FRU is on memory inside the server..we checked it and after that we powered
up the server.. RAID controller reports DEGRADED state..cisco OS started to
boot and in certain point it reported something like " unsupported
hardware......not for the production..without TAC support..bla..bla..bla
)"..we opened the case..

during the case we upgraded  all kinds of  firmware on server and  also find
out that one HDD  failed..we replaced it and troubleshooted more..

finally we got RMA for the server but have spotted very strange behavior on
the new server as well ( we put in into lab to test it )..so, we're thinking
, is the following expected behaviour or there is a serious problem in cisco
OS or IBM HW..

1.       first of all we upgraded the HDD firmware on the new server we got
from RMA to 3B06 ( it was with 3B05 ) having in mindCSCti52867 which we
hitted earlier..after that we'installed CUCM 7.1.5..

2.       when server is shut down and we pull out the right hard drive ( the
one in BAY 1)..we power up the server..RAID controller detects one drive
missing and reports DEGRADED state..cisco OS starts to boot and in certain
point it reports again something like " unsupported hardware......not for
the production..without TAC support..bla..bla..bla )..

3.       when we shut down the server again..and switch the scenario..we get
back the right HDD in server ( BAY 1 ) and pull out the left HDD out ( BAY 0
)..when we power up the server..it doesn't even  detect bootable device like
there is no HDDs inside..

4.       so, when we shut down the server again..and get back both HDDs
where they belong..power up the server..everythings works fine..of course,
RAID is resynching..

5.       of course both HDDs used in server are in correct state and aren't
failed..

so, i'm a little bit confused, since it's happening on 2 different
servers..identical scenario..my RAID1 perception is in serious doubt..

does this mean that if HDD failed during regular maintenance shutdown (
which we had in the first place ), RAID shouldn't provide operational
system?..

to be honest , we didn't have failed disk while server was  up and online so
we couldn't notice what's going on in that situation..

but the fact is, with the old server and with the new server, when we pull
out one of the HDDs the system wouldn't boot up properly..

is this expected behaviour?..what's the purpose of RAID1 then?..

is RAID1 expected to cover just online HDD failure ( if so ) or it should
work in every scenario?..

any thoughts?..

thanx..

regards..

Sinisa Djokic

System Engineer
CCIE #25996 Voice

<image002.png>

MDS Informaticki inzenjering
Milutina Milankovica 7d
11070 Novi Beograd, Serbia
Tel:  +381 11 2015 200  +381 11 2015 200 , 2015 273
Fax: +381 11 3194 954
www.mds.rs
sdjokic at mds.rs

This e-mail message and any attachment are intended exclusively for the
named addressee. They may contain confidential information which may also be
protected by professional secrecy. Unless you are the named addressee (or
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message or any attachment or disclose the contents to anyone else. If this
e-mail was sent to you by mistake please notify the sender immediately and
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