INFINIDAT Storage Plugin for Veritas Cluster

Replication plugin to be used with Veritas cluster (aka VCS, InfoScale HA). manages synchronous replication pairs between two or more nodes, running Veritas Cluster

Prerequisites

The Linux/AIX deployment is based on Python module of REST (REST::Client - https://metacpan.org/pod/REST::Client). the package was build with version 273 of it. resource deployment scripts include the package installation. REST Client has to be compiled with the Perl distribution released with Veritas cluster installation (VRTSperl). With the Windows version of the plugin, InfiniBox shell (Infinishell) is being used, which can be obtained from repo.infinidat.com (version 4.0 onwards is supported) The plugin can be installed after having Veritas Cluster installed.

Installing

Storage plugin has to be installed on each node on the cluster. under the deployment directory, there's a shell script for installing on VCS node running on a Linux/Unix based system, and a batch script to run on a Windows based VCS node.

On Windows:

C:\\deployment\\addinfinidattype.bat

On Linux:

sh ./deployment/addinfinidattype.sh

Available Entry-Points

The following Entry-Points are available when using this plugin:

• Reset Entry-Points, delete the resource lock file to set agent state as offline:
  • Open - Occurs when VCS engine starts
  • Close - Occurs when VCS engine terminates.
  • Clean - Perfromed by the user, when VCS engine fails to starts and gets into FAULTED state.
• Control Entry-Points
  • Online - Brings the resource online (according to the table on next section), creates a lock file when replica pairs are synchronized and cluster starts on source (change roles if needed)
  • Offline - Brings the resource offline, deletes lock file.
  • Monitor - Checks whether resource online operation has finished successfully, by verifying the existance of a lock file

Online Entry Point - startup flow

Resource startup process consist of two major steps: finding the values of replication role, link state, replica state and sync state. Table below include the procedure taken while testing to simulate the states.

Case	Role	Link State	Replica State	Sync State	Simulated by	Expected Result/Action
S1	Source	UP	ACTIVE	SYNCHRONIZED		Success, Creates a lock file
S2	Source	UP	ACTIVE	INITIALIZING	create data on LUN / add new member to CG, rate limit on network space	Warning, Creates a lock file
S3	Source	UP	ACTIVE	INITIALIZING_PENDING	7x pairs on state of Initializing simultaneously	Warning, Creates a lock file
S4	Source	UP	ACTIVE	OUT_OF_SYNC	break a link while sync (detach link)	Warning, Creates a lock file
S5	Source	UP	ACTIVE	SYNC_IN_PROGRESS	reattch and write data	Warning, Creates a lock file
S6	Source	UP	AUTO_SUSPENDED / SUSPENDED	OUT_OF_SYNC	lock the target pool	Error, does not create lock file
S7	Source	UP	Remote is also a source	OUT_OF_SYNC	suspended replica & change role	Error, does not create lock file
S8	Source	Down/Unable to query	AUTO_SUSPENDED	OUT_OF_SYNC	link down & wait 24 hours	Warning (Cluster should prevent data loss), create lock file
S9	N/A	ANY	N/A	N/A		Fail
T1	Target	Up	Active	SYNCHRONIZED		Attemts to Switch Role
T1A - Switch Role failed						Error, do not create lock file
T1B - Switch Role success						Success, Create a lock file
T2	Target	Up	Active	INITIALIZING		Wait till Sync for 300 seconds
T3	Target	Up	Active	INITIALIZING		Wait till Sync for 300 seconds, replica sync
T4	Target	Up	Active	INITIALIZING_PENDING		Waits till Sync for 300 seconds, repllca is not synced
T5	Target	Up	Active	INITIALIZING_PENDING		Waits till Sync for 300 seconds, replica is synced
T6	Target	Up	Active	OUT_OF_SYNC		Wait till Sync for 300 seconds, repllca not sync
T7	Target	Up	Active	SYNC_IN_PROGRESS		Waits till Sync for 300 seconds
T2-5A	After 300 seconds replica is synced
T2-5A-A - Switch role fail						Error, does not create lock file
T2-5A-B - Switch role success						Success, Creates a lock file
T2-5B After 300 seconds replica is not synced						Error, does not create lock file
T6	Target	Up	ANY	OUT_OF_SYNC		Error, does not create lock file
T7	Target	Up	Remote is also a target	N/A		Error, do not creates lock file
T8	Target	N/A	Unknown	N/A		Error, does not create a lock file, Manual intervention required

Resource Attributes

Attribure	Description	Scope
localbox	InfiniBox name/IP which has the replica locally attached to the VCS host	has to be defined on each VCS host seperatly
UserLocal	InfiniBox username for the local box	can be set globally, when the same user is used for both InfiniBox
PasswordLocal	Password for the user of the local InfiniBox	can be set globally, when the same user password is used for both InfiniBox
remotebox	InfiniBox name/IP which does not have the replica locally attached to the VCS host	has to be define on each VCS host seperatly
UserRemote	InfiniBox username for the remote box	can be set globally, when the same user is used for both InfiniBox
PasswordRemote	Password for the user of the remote InfiniBox	can be set globally, when the same user password is used for both InfiniBox
LocalCG	Name of the CG monitored on the local InfiniBox	has to be defined on each VCS host seperatly
RemoteCG	Name of the CG monitored on the remote InfiniBox	has to be define on each VCS host seperatly

Note Passwords has to be encrypted before setting them on the resource attributes

Encrypting password

All passwords has to be encrypted before usage using VCS Encryption tool:

On Linux

/opt/VRTSvcs/bin/vcsencrypt -agent 
Enter Password: (Enter Plain Text password)
Enter Again: (Enter the same password again)
BNCnCNc

On Windows

C:\program files\veritas\cluster server\bin\vcsencrypt -agent 
Enter Password: (Enter Plain Text password)
Enter Again: (Enter the same password again)
BNCnCNc

Use the string returend with the attribute fields for password (PasswordLocal, PasswordRemote)

Limitations

• Only Consistency groups are supported (no volumes)
• Only Sync replication is supported
• tested on Windows, AIX and Linux with VCS versions of 6.1, 6.2 and 7.3

Authors

• Itai Weisman - Genesis