About hardware configuration guidelines
The following are hardware configuration guidelines:
If you use SAN hardware from multiple vendors, problems may occur. Always use a SAN configuration and use the firmware levels that the hardware vendor supports.
Consult SAN device, HBA, and operating system documentation to determine how to configure operating system tape drivers and pass-through drivers to detect your SAN devices.
Check your hub timer settings.
Use hard arbitrated loop physical addresses rather than soft addresses. Consult with hardware suppliers to verify the recommended usage of their products.
Check the firmware levels of all your Fibre Channel hardware (for example, bridges). Use the most recent firmware level that is known to operate with other SAN hardware devices.
Try to duplicate SAN issues and problems using commands and utilities on the host operating system.
Test both backup and restore capabilities. Backup jobs may complete successfully, but the data may be corrupted. For example, incorrect switch settings may cause problems.
Ensure that your hardware and SAN configuration are operational and stable before adding Shared Storage Option software.
Test backup and restore capabilities with dedicated tape drives before you configure them as shared drives.
For large configurations, begin drive sharing with a few tape drives and two or three media servers (or NetBackup SAN media servers).
Configuration and troubleshooting processes are easier on smaller configurations. If possible, create multiple and independent Shared Storage Option configurations with subsets of servers sharing subsets of SAN-attached drives.
Use the correct start order for your Fibre Channel hardware, as follows:
Robots or drives
Bridges
Hubs or switches
Hosts
The start sequence is longer for some devices than others. To verify that the hardware starts completely, examine indicator lights. A green light often indicates a completed start sequence.