What Works With What - 5.1

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Created by snaugle-Oracle on Jun 24, 2015 1:11 AM. Last modified by snaugle-Oracle on Jun 30, 2015 10:27 PM.

    SAM-QFS 5.1 What Works With What

    Revision 5.1

    April 12, 2010

    1. Introduction

    SAM-QFS is an integrated hierarchical storage manager (HSM) and storage area network (SAN) file system. SAM is the HSM storage and archive management component. QFS is the SAN scalable high performance file system component. SAM-QFS also has integrated disk volume management and tape volume management. QFS also has a write once, read many times (WORM) file system capability. QFS can be used independently of SAM when just a file system is needed. SAM requires QFS and cannot be used independently of QFS. This "What Works With What" covers the specifics of what works with SAM-QFS.

    This What Works With What (WWWW or W4) covers the following products:

    • SAM-QFS (includes SAM-FS) 5.1
    • QFS 5.1

    The build level for this release is 5.1.4.Note that Red Hat 5 Linux is still not supported by SAM-QFS.

    2. Supported Products, Configurations, And Features

    The following products, configurations, and features are supported with SAM-QFS and QFS.

    2.1 Hardware Products

    • All Sun SPARC (64 bit) architecture servers and workstations.
    • All Sun x64 (64 bit) AMD architecture servers and workstations.
    • All Sun x64 (64 bit) Intel architecture servers and workstations.
    • All Sun x86 (32 bit) Intel architecture servers are only supported as Shared QFS clients.
    • All Fujitsu Prime Power SPARC servers.
    • All Sun SCSI, FC, and iSCSI protocols.
    • All Sun SCSI and FC HBAs.
    • All Sun FC switches.
    • All Sun RAID disk arrays (includes StorageTek RAID disk arrays).
    • All Sun hard disk drives (includes the X4500).
    • The tape libraries and tape drives listed at:
      SAM-QFS Tape Library and Drive Support
    • All non-Sun HBAs and switches supported by Sun (includes HBAs and switches listed in the Interop and PreQual Tools as well as via the Get To Yes program).
    • All non-Sun RAID disk arrays supported by Sun (includes RAID disk arrays listed in the Interop and PreQual Tools as well as via the Get To Yes program).

    2.2 Software Products

    • Solaris 10 Update 6 (10/08) or later software.
    • Linux RedHat 4 RHEL AS and ES x64 64 bit servers as Shared QFS clients.
    • Linux SUSE 10 SLES x64 64 bit servers as Shared QFS clients.
    • Linux SUSE 9 SLES x64 64 bit servers as Shared QFS clients.
    • ZFS Volume Manager (ZVOLs).
    • Solaris Volume Manager (SVM).
    • Solaris Volume Manager (SVM) OBAN cluster capability with Solaris Cluster.
    • Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM) with stand-alone SAM-QFS.
    • NFS V4
    • NFS V3
    • SAMBA
    • All StorageTek ACSLS releases through 7.3.
    • Solaris Cluster HA-QFS.
    • Solaris Cluster HA-SAM (SAM failover). It is only supported in a two host active/passive configuration. There are several configuration restrictions regarding this feature and the SAM Administration Guide should be read prior to using this feature.
    • Solaris Cluster HA-Oracle.
    • Solaris Cluster Scalable (Shared) QFS with Oracle Real Application Cluster (Oracle RAC).
      Solaris Cluster configuration guidelines are at:
      Solaris Cluster 3 Configuration Guide
    • IBM Tivoli SANergy with a Solaris SPARC server. IBM Tivoli SANergy file sharing software may be used to support hosts running different operating systems (heterogeneous support). This software is not supported with Solaris x64 servers, however. This software is now supported by Sun Support Services with IBM serving as backline support.

    2.3 Configurations

    • Shared QFS systems must have a minimum of one GByte of memory.
    • SAM-QFS x64 tape large block support where the tape block size is greater than 128 KBytes requires a minimum of 4 GBytes of memory in the system.
    • EFI disk labels (Multi-TByte LUN disk arrays).
    • Solaris mixed architecture (SPARC with x64) Shared QFS configurations need to use EFI disk labels.
    • Shared QFS should be implemented using a private or dedicated ethernet switched network for metadata transmission. Performance problems can occur if this network is not private.
    • For Shared QFS configurations of 10 hosts (nodes) or greater it is recommended that applications not be run on the metadata server to provide more predictable client performance.
    • Sun StorageTek Enterprise Backup to a SAM-QFS file system.
    • Veritas NetBackup to a SAM-QFS file system.
    • Ethernet jumbo frames for use in the Shared QFS metadata network.
    • 10 Gbit ethernet for the Shared QFS metadata network.
    • Clients outside of Solaris Cluster in Solaris Cluster configurations. This includes clients of mixed architectures (SPARC with x64). This capability is only supported with the ma file system type.
    • Solaris iSCSI targets.
    • Sun Infinite Archive System (Content Infrastructure System).
    • Shared QFS configurations must follow the Sun Storage Area Network (SAN) 4.4.x configuration rules at:
      What Works With What Configuration Matrices

    2.4 Virtualization Configurations

    • Zones (containers). Only one non-global zone per file system is supported. There are several configuration restrictions regarding this feature and the QFS Administration Guide should be read prior to using this feature. For Solaris Cluster, Oracle RAC is supported in a Zone Cluster.
    • LDOMs guest domains. LDOMs guest domains are supported with QFS and Shared QFS file systems; However, they are not supported with SAM archiving functionality. For Solaris Cluster, virtual storage devices used by Shared QFS must be backed by whole SCSI FC LUN disk arrays, and must not be shared with any other guest domain on the same server; virtualized partial LUN disk arrays are not supported.

    2.5 Features

    • Write Once, Read Many times (WORM) files (compatible with the Sun StorageTek 5320 NAS appliance).
    • Shared QFS metadata server failover (samsharefs -s).
    • The Sun StorageTek 5800 (version 1.1) as an archive device.
    • If running SAM with Shared QFS, SAM must be run on the metadata server.
    • A version 2 file system can be upgraded to a version 2A file system using "samfsck -u".
    • A version 1 file system cannot be upgraded to a version 2 file system.
    • SAM-Remote servers and clients must be running the same revision level of SAM-QFS. This requirement also applies to disk archive servers and clients as well.
    • Shared QFS servers and clients must be running the same revision of SAM-QFS or QFS software, unless the servers and clients are part of a supported Rolling Upgrade. Multi-reader servers and clients must be running the same revision of SAM-QFS or QFS software.
    • Mixed architecture (SPARC with x64) metadata servers are not supported for failover purposes.
    • Mixed architecture (SPARC with x64) multi-reader configurations are not supported.
    • Archiver file examine list.
    • Online grow. Online grow includes support for Solaris Cluster.
    • Online shrink. Online shrink is only supported for V2A ma file systems. Online shrink now includes support for Solaris Cluster.
    • samfsdump sideband database.
    • mmap() I/O with the MAP_SHARED flag is now supported across multiple hosts (nodes).
    • x64 Solaris 10 Update 6 Vnode Page Mappings (VPM) performance enhancement.

    3. Unsupported Products, Configurations, And Features

    The following products, configurations, and features are not currently supported with SAM-QFS and QFS.

    3.1 Hardware Products

    • Shared QFS systems with less than one GByte of memory

    3.2 Software Products

    • OpenSolaris 2008.11
    • Solaris 9
    • Linux RedHat 5
    • Linux RedHat 3
    • Linux SUSE 8
    • Linux x86 32 bit operating systems
    • Sun StorageTek Enterprise Backup of a SAM file system
    • Veritas NetBackup of a SAM file system
    • Instant Image (II)
    • Sun StorageTek Network Data Replicator (SNDR)
    • NFS V4 access control lists (ACLs)
    • NFS V4 delegations with Shared QFS
    • Solaris CIFS (Common Internet File System)

    3.3 Configurations

    • Solaris regular zones with Solaris Cluster
    • Solaris Cluster HA-SAM with clients outside of Solaris Cluster

    3.4 Features

    • Segmented files on a shared file system
    • Memory mapped segmented files
    • Mixed architecture (SPARC with x64) metadata server failover
    • Mixed architecture (SPARC with x64) multi-reader
    • The Linux Shared QFS client doesn't support:
      - access control lists (ACLs)
      - quotas
      - being used as a NFS or Samba server
      - sam-aio driver
      - SAM-QFS Manager (GUI)
      - 32 bit kernels on x64 systems
      - forced unmount (umount -f)
      - mdadm path failover

    4. Certified Products And Configurations

    The following products and configurations were certified (tested) for SAM-QFS and QFS:

    4.1 SAM

    The tape libraries and tape drives listed at:
    SAM-QFS Tape Library and Drive Support

    4.2 QFS

    The size of configurations available to SAM-QFS Engineering are smaller than what QFS and Shared QFS can support and which customers are installing. Engineering has tested up to the amount of hardware available to Engineering.QFS and Shared QFS are designed for up to 252 partitions in a single file system and the size of a file system is limited by the underlying size of each partition. In the simplest case, each partition could consist of a single LUN disk array. Thus very large file systems can be constructed with QFS and in fact much larger file systems than Engineering is able to test. Engineering has tested a file system with 48 disks in it.Also, the maximum number of hosts (nodes) that Shared QFS is designed for is 1,000s of hosts. Thus very large shared file system configurations can be constructed with Shared QFS and in fact much larger than Engineering is able to test. Engineering has tested a file system with 64 hosts sharing it.

    4.3 Linux Shared QFS Clients

    The Linux Shared QFS clients were certified (tested) with both SMI and EFI disk label types. Note that a Linux kernel patch is usually needed for EFI disk label support.The following versions of Linux were certified for Sun x64 64 bit architecture systems:

    • RedHat 4.5 (2.6.9-55 x86_64 kernel) SMP RHEL AS and ES
    • RedHat 4 Update 4 (2.6.9-42 x86_64 kernel) SMP RHEL AS and ES
    • SUSE 10 Service Pack 2 (2.6.16.60-0.21 x86_64 kernel) SMP SLES
    • SUSE 10 (2.6.16.21 x86_64 kernel) SMP SLES
    • SUSE 9 Service Pack 2 (2.6.5-7.191 x86_64 kernel) SMP SLES

    4.3.1 Linux I/O Channel (Path) Failover

    Device mapper path failover was tested with RedHat 4, SUSE 10, and SUSE 9 and is supported.mdadm path failover is not supported. This is due to its use of a superblock at the end of each disk slice that Solaris is unaware of.

    4.4 Oracle

    4.4.1 HA-Oracle

    The following versions of HA-Oracle were certified with QFS and Solaris Cluster:

    • SPARC Oracle 11g Release 1 (11.1.0.7)
    • SPARC Oracle 10g Release 2 (10.2.0.4.0)
    • x64 Oracle 10g Release 2 (10.2.0.4.0)

    4.4.2 Oracle Real Application Cluster (Oracle RAC)

    The following versions of Oracle RAC were certified with Shared QFS and Solaris Cluster:

    • SPARC Oracle 11g Release 1 (11.1.0.7)
    • SPARC Oracle 10g Release 2 (10.2.0.4.0)
    • x64 Oracle 10g Release 2 (10.2.0.4.0)

    Note that Oracle RAC 10g does not support NUMA_optimization on the V210 and V240 entry level servers with UltraSPARC-IIIi CPUs.

    4.4.3 Solaris Cluster

    The following versions of Solaris Cluster were certified with Shared QFS for this:

    • Solaris Cluster 3.2 U3
    • Solaris Cluster 3.2 U2
    • Solaris Cluster 3.1 U4 + Patches

    Note that Solaris Cluster 3.2 is required if EFI disk labels are being used.

    5. Uncertified Products And Configurations

    The following products were not certified (tested) with SAM-QFS and QFS and thus the potential exists that a customer may have problems with them:

    • Sun StorageTek Enterprise Backup of a QFS file system
    • Veritas NetBackup of a QFS file system
    • Veritas Cluster Services (VCS)
    • Veritas Cluster Volume Manager (VCVM)
    • Sun StorageTek Resource Management Suite
    • Sun StorADE
    • Any other Solaris Cluster agent with shared QFS configuration that hasn't been previously listed as supported
    • HA-NFS with HA-SAM

    Sun is aware that customers use these products in some configurations, but their use with SAM-QFS is not specifically certified by Sun. The "Get To Yes" (GTY) program, while not required, should be considered when planning implementations of these products with SAM-QFS and QFS.

    Note that backup of QFS file system data should work. Backup products may not be aware of all of the QFS metadata extended attribute information, however, and this should be taken into account when backing up a QFS file system.

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