the hosts are running windows 2003 R2 enterprise

i cannot add both hosts to the same storage group because they are not using any failover software which allows only one host access to the storage at a time

why not add both hosts to the same storage group? What OS are you running?

How about this?

Make 2 storage groups(A, B) and add all LUNs to both storage groups.

Only add primary server to storage group A.

When its fails, add standby server to another storage group B.

After that, make sure rescan device on standby server.

I think it will works.

One of my customer wants to do that, too.

The problem is if you cannot access to NaviMgr when server fails, that server should be need offline time.

If you wanna do it automatically, you need to use NaviCLI, make batch files for move storage groups.

Message was edited by:
ruroruro

so you need to automate this "failover" process ? You could use navicli or naviseccli to move hosts in and out of storage groups ..just what ruroruro suggested. These commands are send to the storage processor on Clariion ..so it does not matter if the host is down or not. If the failover host is up you will simply need to rescan for LUNs in Disk Management or if the host is down ..just bring it online and it will do it at boot time.

Here are a couple of solutions that I would recommend.

1. Disable the HBA's on the "stand-by" node until you need them.

To do this you can script up a WMI script for windows to disable/enable the HBA's on the host as you need them. All you have to do is pre-setup your zoning and and add both hosts to the SG then you can control at the host when they can see the disk space. I would also recommend that when you script up a WMI call to disable your HBA's that you also have it do a re-scan of the disk's with diskpart (or WMI?)

2. Use NaviCLI to add and remove the hosts in/out of the SG

To do this you will need to use the following NaviCLI call's.
(Please note that this navicli syntax is from the most current 6.22 release)
To add a host:

navicli storagegroup -connecthost -host "HostName" -gname "StorageGroupName"

To remove a host:

navicli storagegroup -disconnecthost -host "HostName" -gname "StorageGroupName"

If you want this to be a manual process then you could write a script that is on each host with the commands to remove the other node from the SG.

Also I recommend that you make sure that all of your security settings in order to use NaviCLI are correct as well as the configuration on the array.

Regards,
Shmac

since there's a popup window opening when you're adding a lun to a second sg that says that it is not recommended to add a lun to multiple sgs, I think the best way to solve this problem is to take the proposed commands and put them into a script as mentioned by shmac. this is the way we do it for more than two years now...
stefan

That "pop-up" window is old. What flare are you running? It is just a warning letting you know that your hosts need to be able to support "Sharing" disks between each other. You can add them safely if you go with the "Disable HBA" option. Otherwise I would script it to add and remove

Regards,
Shmac