My First NetApp

We just purchased a NetApp FAS3240 for our new vCloud, This made me really miss my comfort zone with EMC products.  But here are the initial setup challenges I faced and how I overcame them

1) Basic wiring, who puts the Shelves on the bottom really?.  So the wiring diagram is giving me headaches because there is no way I’m racking top-down.

2) Basic wiring continued.. because this NetApp was purchased with HA, and there are ports labeled c0a & c0b that are described as “Controller to controller HA cable” I incorrectly assumed I needed to use them.  After waiting overnight to get access to the NetApp.com website(Really? it’s 2011), I was able to download the manual and find that “they use an internal InfiniBand connector between the two controller modules, so no interconnect adapters or cabling is required.”

3) Basic console setup, This requires a serial cable (you know that thing they stopped putting on laptops 6 years ago).  You’ll need to setup each controller module separately, I only configured the maintenance port, which is e0m (wouldn’t it be nice if that was on the sticker with the other e0 labels, or at least in the big blue instructions that comes with it).

4) Web Setup, https://ipaddress/api for setup then https://ipaddress/na_admin/ for management.  I could only partially use the UI, it is java based, but it doesn’t work unless you modify your java setup.  Start/Control Panel/Advanced Tab/Security-General/uncheck “Use TLS 1.0” then close/reopen your browser. 

5) Once I had the web UI working, it was reporting that I had a Shelf Failure, this turned out to be a co-worker didn’t fully seat a power cable, but that wasn’t clearly bubbled up as a power issue, more of a vague shelf error. 

6) HA was not working, instead of there being an actual problem, I went into Cluster/Manage/ “Enable Takeover” and instantly my unit went from Red to Green and everybody was happy, I could now ping both Management IP’s and HA was online.

7) I am still having issues getting email alerts and NTP working consistently, and I haven’t setup any LUNS or exports yet.  That’s an adventure for next week.