Dell OpenManage Server Administrator Version 6.5 Read me

DELL(TM) OPENMANAGE(TM) SERVER ADMINISTRATOR STORAGE MANAGEMENT
Version 3.5
Release Notes
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This is the readme file for Dell OpenManage Server
Administrator Storage Management version 3.5.
For additional information, see the Server Administrator readme file
and the "Dell OpenManage Server Administrator User's Guide."

Note: The Storage Management service is installed using the
Server Administrator installation process. See the
installation readme (readme_ins.txt) on the "Dell Systems
Management Tools and Documentation" DVD for the latest
installation information.

Note: Installing the Storage Management service on a system that does
not have a supported controller or that has a controller that
is not attached to storage is not supported.
It is recommended to use Server Administrator Storage Management

3.5 only on controllers that have PERC 7.2 firmware or later.
If you install or run Storage Management using an
unsupported configuration, it can result in unexpected and
undesirable system behavior.

Note: With Dell OpenManage Systems Management software
version 5.0 or later, Array Manager is not an installable option.
If the Array Manager is installed on your system and you
need information on how to migrate from Array Manager to
Storage Management, see the product documentation prior to
Storage Management 2.1 or the Systems Management software
version 5.1.

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What’s New in this Release
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This release of Storage Management provides
the following new features:

• The GUI in storage enclosures displays the
Dell System Express Service Code along
with the Dell System Service Tag.

• With Solid State Disks (SSDs), you can configure a CacheCade
for your virtual disks. For more information,
see CacheCade Using Solid State Drives.

• With the latest firmware, SATA drives with capacity of more than 2 TB
are supported. For the minimum required firmware and driver versions,
go to the Dell OpenManage Server Administrator
and click Storage? Storage Controller? Firmware/Driver Version.

• The new Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) H200 driver and

firmware supports 3 TB NL SAS hard drives,
3 TB NL SATA hard drives, and SAS SSDs.

• Added support for the following operating systems:

• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 SP1

• Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2011

• VMware ESX 4.1 Update 1

• VMware ESXi 4.1 Update 1

• VMware ESX 4.0 Update 3

• Vmware ESXi 4.0 Update 3

• Citrix Xen Server 5.6 FP1

For information on Alert Messages,
see the Dell OpenManage Server Administrator Messages Reference Guide
and for information on Command Line Interface,
see Dell OpenManage Server Administrator Command Line Interface User's Guide,
at support.dell.com/manuals.

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Title and Description
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Server Administrator Storage Management is a storage management
application for your systems that provides enhanced features for
configuring a system's locally-attached RAID and non-RAID disk
storage. Server Administrator Storage Management enables you to
perform controller and enclosure
functions for all supported RAID and non-RAID controllers and
enclosures from a single graphical or command-line interface without
using the controller BIOS utilities. The graphical
user interface (GUI) is wizard-driven with features for novice and
advanced users and detailed online help. The command line interface
is fully-featured and scriptable.

The Storage Management service supports SCSI, SATA, and SAS
technologies.

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Installation
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The Storage Management service is installed using the Server
Administrator installation process. For Server Administrator
installation requirements, see the following documentation:

* The installation readme (readme_ins.txt) on the
"Dell Systems Management Tools and Documentation" DVD for the latest
installation information.

* The "Installing Server Administrator" chapter in the Server
Administrator User's Guide.

In addition to the Server Administrator installation requirements,
the following requirements apply to Storage Management. Storage
Management may experience instability if these requirements are
not met.

* Microsoft(R) Windows Server(R) 2003 with Service Pack 1 or later,
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 1,
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 SP1,
Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2011 and
Microsoft Windows HPC Server 2008 is required to support
SAS technology.

* Windows(R) 2000 Server 32-bit with Service Pack 4 or later required
to support SAS technology.
NOTE: Windows 2000 Server 64-bit is not supported.

* Red Hat(R) Enterprise Linux(R) 5.x. or later is required
for Storage Management and Red Hat(R) Enterprise Linux(R) Update 7
or later is required for the Red Hat Network (RHN) service to
update your system software with the latest update package before
deploying your system. See "www.redhat.com” to access the RHN
service and download updates.

* VMware ESX 4.1 Update 1 and later, Vmware ESXi 4.0 Update 1 and later
and Citrix Xen Server 5.6 FP1

* SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 for Intel(R) EM64T with
Service Pack 3 or later and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 with
Service Pack 1 is required to support SAS technology.

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COMPATIBILITY WITH OTHER RAID STORAGE MANAGEMENT UTILITIES
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* PERC Console and FAST Compatibility Issues when Installing Storage
Management

Installing Storage Management on a system that has FAST or the
PERC Console installed is not supported. It is
recommended that you uninstall FAST and the PERC Console before
installing Storage Management. Storage Management or the FAST features
may be disabled at run time
when using Storage Management on a system that also has FAST
installed. Storage Management replaces all storage management
features provided by FAST and the PERC Console. In addition,
Storage Management has features not provided by FAST and the PERC
Console.

* Compatibility with Linux Utilities

Installing Storage Management on a system running a Linux operating
system and configured with 3rd party RAID storage management

utilities is not supported. It is recommended that
you uninstall these utilities before installing Storage
Management. Storage Management replaces the storage management
features provided by these utilities. Examples of
3rd party Linux utilities include:

- LinFlash

- DellMgr

- DellMON

- LINLib

- MegaMgr

- MegaMON

Note: These utilities are only applicable to the following controllers:
PERC 4/SC, 4/DC, 4e/DC, 4/Di, 4/IM, 4e/Si, 4e/Di.

* See the "Installing Server Administrator" chapter in the Server
Administrator User's Guide.

Note: You cannot reinstall Storage Management on a system that
already has Storage Management installed. If you need to
reinstall Storage Management, you must first uninstall the
existing installation using the Server Administrator
uninstallation process.

Note: Installing Storage Management on a system that does not have a
supported controller or that has a controller that is not
attached to storage is not supported. If you install or run
Storage Management on an unsupported
configuration, unexpected and undesirable system behavior may
occur. It is recommended to use Server Administrator Storage
Management 3.5 on controllers that have PERC 7.2 firmware
or later only.

See the WARNINGS section of this readme for additional
information.

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Criticality
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2 - Recommended

Note: The Storage Management service does not support Novell(R)
NetWare(R) operating systems or fibre channel storage.
the Storage Management service does not provide Disk and
volume management.

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WARNINGS
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* As a general rule, use only one RAID utility to
configure and manage storage. Installing the Storage Management

service on a system that has native RAID utilities or RAID
utilities provided by vendors is not supported.

* The Storage Management service enables you to perform storage
tasks that are data-destructive. The Storage Management service
should be used by experienced storage administrators who are
familiar with their storage environment.

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Fixed Issues/defects
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Not Applicable.

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Known issues and Workarounds
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The following sections describe known problems associated with
Storage Management or the supported controllers.

* If a CacheCade drive is imported as part of a foreign configuration,
verify the state of the drive as it may have been imported as a
‘regular’ RAID 0 volume and not a CacheCade drive.
CacheCade will need to be reconfigured.

* Dell OpenManage Server Administrator Storage Management 3.3
does not support PERC 4 controllers and earlier versions
on VMware ESX4.x/ESXi 4.x and all 64-bit
Linux Operating Systems.

* Hot removal of enclosure is not supported in Storage Management.
It may result in unpredictable errors, such as stopping Storage
Management service.

* Creating many sliced span virtual disks using the spun-down drives
in the command line or GUI may result in unexpected result.

Workaround: After creating one sliced span virtual disk, wait
for some time to create the next sliced span virtual disk.

* In ESX4 Classic, 'deprecated SCSI ioctl' message is displayed on
the console

Problem: In VMware ESX 4.0 Classic system, the following
warning message(s) is displayed on the console:
“Program dsm_sa_datamgrd is using the deprecated SCSI ioctl,
Please convert it to SG_IO.” This is a kernel warning message
displayed when storage operations are in progress.
This is only a deprecation warning and not an indication
of a failing operation.

Workaround: Reduce the kernel logging level.

By default, VMware ESX kernel logging level is set to ‘6’ to print
all the kernel messages with severity higher than ‘information.’
Reduce it to ‘4’, so that messages with severity, ‘error,’ and above
get printed to the console.

To do this, execute the following command as a ‘root’ user:
/proc/sys/kernel/printk.

* A Security Key Identifier can contain numerals, lowercase alphabets,
uppercase alphabets, non-alphanumeric characters (except space),
or a combination of any of these.
Note: If you have used the special characters ” \” (forward slash)
or “ ‘ ” (single quote) in the Security Key Identifier, they are
displayed as “_” (underscore) on the Change Security Key page and
Import Secured Foreign Configurations page.
This is applicable only to the Security Key Identifier and
not to the Passphrase.

* Storage Management does not support creating or importing of
sliced spanned virtual disks on the controllers that do not
supported PERC 7.1 firmware. You cannot create RAID 10, RAID 50,
or RAID 60 in sliced manner.
If you create sliced spanned virtual disks using another application
and attempt to import the same using Storage Management,
the behavior cannot be predicted.

* If Storage Management displays a path failure message for a Logical
Connector after a reboot, use the "Clear Redundant Path View"
provided in the "Change Controller Properties" controller task and
restart the system.
NOTE: Use this command only if you have intentionally removed the
multipath connection during reboot of the system.

* In the VMware ESX 3.5 and ESX 4.0 environment, when you create a
virtual disk using Storage Management, you may see an error message
"The task failed to complete : The create virtual disk task was
successful but the operating system may not be aware of the new
virtual disk." However, the virtual disk is available for all
operations on rebooting of the system.

* On VMware ESX4 Classic and embedded operating systems, after creating
a new virtual disk, the device name does not appear. In this case,
the operating system is not aware of the newly created virtual disk.
To avoid this issue, refresh the browser or reboot the server
after creating the virtual disk.

* Patrol Read is not supported on SSD media. The Patrol Read feature
will fail for any controller that has SSD media on a virtual disk.

* Hotplug of enclosures takes time to enumerate the enclosure and
its components. During this time, there is a delay in the
response time of tasks, such as displaying the physical disks on
the physical disk page and in the virtual disk selection page.

* All virtual disks from the SAS/iR controller display the name
"IR Virtual Disk" on the "Preview" page. On successful import,

another name is assigned to these virtual disks and the "IR Virtual
Disk" name is not displayed on the "Preview" page.

* Storage Management supports assignment of only one
dedicated hot spare for a virtual disk on SCSI Controllers.

* Storage Management does not permit connecting the first enclosure
in single path and attaching the subsequent enclosures in
multipath. All enclosures must be connected in multipath to enable
the multipath view.

* An error message may not display when "Import Foreign
Configuration" task is not successful.

Problem: The "Import Foreign Configuration" task can only import
virtual disks that have consistent data. A virtual disk with
inconsistent data cannot be imported. When importing multiple
virtual disks in a single operation, however, the "Import Foreign
Configuration" task may report successful completion even when
inconsistent virtual disks are present and have not been imported
successfully.

Solution: If the "Import Foreign Configuration" task is unable to
import an inconsistent virtual disk, then the physical disks that
belong to the virtual disk continue to display a "Foreign" state
after the "Import Foreign Configuration" task completes. In this
case, repeat the "Import Foreign Configuration" task until one of
the following occurs:

-- There are no longer any physical disks in "Foreign" state after
the "Import Foreign Configuration" task completes.

-- You receive an error stating that the "Import Foreign
Configuration" task has not completed successfully. This error
indicates that there are no longer any consistent virtual disks
available to be imported. Therefore, all unimported virtual
disks are inconsistent and you can either perform a
"Clear Foreign Configuration" to remove the virtual disks or
remove the physical disks from the controller.

* On a SAS 6/iR, using the command line interface (CLI) to clear a
foreign configuration displays an error message. (154604)

Problem: When using the following command on a SAS 6/iR controller:

omconfig storage controller action=clearforeignconfig controller=id

a "failure" error message may display even though the command has
completed successfully.

Solution: Verify that the "Clear Foreign Configuration" task
completed successfully by using the Storage Management graphical
user interface (GUI):

1. Expand the SAS 6/iR controller object in the tree view.

2. Select the "Physical Disks" object display under the SAS 6/iR
controller object.