Huawei UltraPath Technical White Paper PDF

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UltraPath Technical
White Paper

Issue 01
Date 2012-04-20

HUAWEI TECHNOLOGIES CO., LTD.

UltraPath Technical White Paper
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Copyright Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
2012. All rights reserved
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Copyright Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2012. All rights reserved.
No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means
without prior written consent of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.

Trademarks and Permissions
and other Huawei trademarks are trademarks of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
All other trademarks and trade names mentioned in this document are the property of their
respective holders.

Notice
The purchased products, services and features are stipulated by the contract made between
Huawei and the customer. All or part of the products, services and features described in this
document may not be within the purchase scope or the usage scope. Unless otherwise
specified in the contract, all statements, information, and recommendations in this document
are provided "AS IS" without warranties, guarantees or representations of any kind, either
express or implied.
The information in this document is subject to change without notice. Every effort has been
made in the preparation of this document to ensure accuracy of the contents, but all
statements, information, and recommendations in this document do not constitute the
warranty of any kind, express or implied.

Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
Address: Huawei Industrial Base
Bantian, Longgang
Shenzhen 518129
People's Republic of China
Website: http://www.huawei.com
Email: support@huawei.com

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Chapter 1 Overview
1.1 Single Point Failure
The single point failure indicates that any failure on the network can lead to the
breakdown of the entire network. According to this definition, the single point
failure may occur to:
1 Path between the external network and the application server (AS)
2 As
3 Path between the AS and the controller
4 Controller
5 Path between the controller and disks
6 Disks

To prevent the single point failure, the highly-reliable system performs redundant
backup for devices that are possible to meet the single point failure. The
redundant backup is performed in interconnected networking to achieve highest
reliability and performance.
The multi-path technology can ensure the reliability of redundant paths. If one
path is unavailable and cannot meet requirements on specified performance, the
multi-path technology can automatically and transparently transmit the I/O flow to
another available path. In this way, the I/O flow can be effectively and reliably
transmitted. See Figure 1-11.
Figure 1-1 Multi-path networking

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1.2 Introduction to the OceanStor UltraPath
The OceanStor UltraPath is the first self-developed multi-path software in China.
It is based on the host driver to control access to storage devices, thus achieving
pathing between the host and storage devices and improving path reliability and
performance between the host and storage devices. The OceanStor UltraPath
provides easy management of paths between the host and storage devices and
provides a simple, fast, and efficient management solution.
Chapter 2 Work Principle
In a highly reliable system, redundant backup can be performed for the single
point failure, but problems may occur without the installation of the UltraPath.
Illusion: When multiple paths are connected, multiple real mapped LUNs are seen
on the AS, thus creating a false appearance.
Risk: The operating system (OS) thinks the two disks are independent, thus
destroying the data or leading to I/O error.
No redundancy: The OS cannot decide when and how to use the redundant path.
Waste of resources: The OS cannot use the redundant path to balance load.

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As shown in the left figure of Figure 2-1, when a LUN is mapped to the host
through two HBAs, two mappings are seen on the host. When the two LUNs are
read or written, data conflict occurs.
Figure 2-1 Situations with the UltraPath and without the UltraPath

When the UltraPath is installed, redundant devices can be shielded, thus avoiding
illusion. A new device is created to correspond to multiple paths. As shown in the
right figure of Figure 2-1, the OS can see a real disk VDisk through the UltraPath.
The application can directly access the disk virtualized by the UltraPath and the
disk corresponds to multiple paths. In this way, data conflict is avoided.
The UltraPath can achieve failover and load balance between servers and arrays.
If a LUN is connected to multiple paths, the UltraPath can automatically choose
the optimal path. When the current path is unavailable, other redundant paths can
be used, thus avoiding service interruption caused by the single point failure.
When multiple optimal paths are available, static and dynamic load balance on
the multiple paths can be achieved, thus greatly improving I/O performance.
Chapter 3 Technical Feature
3.1 Creating Virtual Devices
For users, it is dangerous to perform any operation on any redundant LUN
(actually the LUN on the same array). When multiple paths are connected, each
LUN on the array is mapped for many times. It means that a LUN on the same

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array has multiple images in the OS. Any operation on the LUN can arouse data
access conflict.
The UltraPath can hide the redundant LUN that is mapped for many times and
disenable any operation on the redundant LUN. Users can see and use the virtual
LUN created by the UltraPath. The virtual LUN is an integration of the information
about the redundant LUN. When users operate the virtual LUN, the UltraPath
hides the choosing and controlling of actual paths by the UltraPath.
The virtual LUN created by the UltraPath is classified into two types:
1. In the AIX OS, only one OS device node is reserved for each redundant device.
The other OS device nodes are hidden.
2. In the Windows OS and the Linux OS, use the UltraPath to create a new device
node. The UltraPath can name the new device node in a recognizable method.
The process of creating a virtual LUN is transparent to upper layer applications
and does not destroy original data on the LUN, thus ensuring data correctness
and operation availability.
3.2 Automatically Choosing a Optimal Path
Automatically choosing a optimal path indicates choosing the best path between
the AS and the storage system.
Each LUN is owned by an owning controller. The features of arrays decide that
the quickest speed to access the LUN is through the owning controller. The path
connected to the owning controller is the optimal path. The UltraPath can obtain
the information about the owning controller that owns the LUN and choose one or
multiple paths connected to the controller to perform I/O operations, thus
achieving the quickest I/O speed. As shown in , VDisk is
owned by controller A. The UltraPath will first choose the path connected to
controller A as the optimal path.
The UltraPath will first choose the optimal path as the current path. When the
optimal path fails, the driver can automatically perform failover. When the optimal
path is recovered, the driver can restore the current path to the optimal path.
3.3 Failover
When the currently used path fails, the UltraPath will automatically switch the
services to other redundant paths. The switch process is transparent to the upper
layer applications without human interference, thus avoiding service interruption
caused by the single point failure.
When detecting that the currently used path fails, the UltraPath perform failback
to switch the services from the faulty path to the normal optimal path. The driver
will run without interruption. When failover occurs between the host and the

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switch, HBA 1 is automatically switched to HBA 2. When failover occurs between
the device and the switch, the faulty path is automatically switched to another
path. See Figure 3-11.
Figure 3-1 HBA-level failover and target-level failover

3.4 Failback
When the faulty path on which the services are switched to other paths is
recovered, the UltraPath will automatically switch back to the recovered path. The
switch process is transparent to the upper layer applications. The UltraPath can
detect paths periodically and perform failback when the faulty path is recovered.
The periods can be set through configuration files.
The failover and failback function of the UltraPath can automatically detect
inactive paths periodically, detect the path fault, and recover the fault. When a
path fails, the UltraPath performs failover. When the UltraPath detects that the
faulty path is recovered, it performs failback. The failover and failback operation
can be performed without human interference. The services of users can still be
kept online, thus optimizing the performance and maximizing storage assets.
3.5 I/O Load Balance
When there are more than two optimal paths connected from the AS to the
storage system, you can achieve static and dynamic load balance.
Static load balance indicates that when a LUN has multiple I/Os, the UltraPath
chooses the optimal paths to send I/Os to different paths through Round-Robin in

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turn, that is, send I/Os to optimal paths in turn to reduce the I/O load on a single
path.
Compared with static load balance, dynamic load balance can dynamically
choose to send I/Os to the path that has the smallest amount of I/Os for better
performance, especially when the performance of two paths is inconsistent due to
the performance of HBAs or other reasons. Dynamic load balance is classified
into minimum queue depth load balance and minimum task load balance. For
minimum queue depth load balance, the UltraPath chooses the path that has
finished the maximum number of I/Os from the optimal paths. For minimum task
load balance, the UltraPath chooses the path that sends the minimum number of
I/Os from the optimal paths.
3.6 Dynamically Sensing a LUN
When the storage system changes (increase or decrease) the number of LUNs
mapped to the AS, the UltraPath can update the changing number of LUNs
online.
The UltraPath can dynamically manage the LUNs added to or deleted from the
host. When you add or delete one or multiple LUN mappings on the host without
shutting down the server or interrupting services, the UltraPath can dynamically
sense the information about the LUN and update related information in the driver.
3.7 Availability of Application Software
1. Supporting cluster software
The UltraPath is transparent to the upper-layer application software, and can
achieve load balance in cluster nodes by using the cluster software.
The UltraPath supports the mainstream cluster software, such as MSCS, VCS,
HACMP, and Oracle RAC. In the cluster networking, the UltraPath works as a
bridge between the cluster software and arrays, thus optimizing the cluster
networking.
The UltraPath converts the SCSI-2 command sent by the host to the SCSI-3
command, thus enabling cluster nodes to achieve load balance, failover, and
failback. Frequent switch of cluster nodes is avoided, that is, when a single path
on the primary node fails, another redundant path on the node is switched
through the failover function, thus ensuring the continuance of applications on the
node and avoiding the high price paid for switching cluster nodes for the single
point failure in clusters.
2. Supporting database

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The UltraPath supports the mainstream database software, such as Oracle, DB2,
MySQL, Sybase, and Informix.
3.8 Applicability and Correctness
The UltraPath is installed on a server that supports FC, SAS, and iSCSI host
interfaces. The UltraPath supports three host platforms: Windows, Linux, and
AIX.
When the UltraPath switches paths and performs load balance during the I/O
process, the UltraPath can ensure the correctness of I/O data, that is, path switch
and load balance are transparent to the upper-layer I/Os.
3.9 Expandable Architecture
When the UltraPath is installed, on the base of destroying no customers' data,
you can convert the single path networking to the multi-path networking or the
single switch networking to the dual-switch networking.
The UltraPath can achieve conversion.Original configurations on the storage
arrays and the running service on the host are not affected. The UltraPath makes
full use of redundant paths to improve storage usage and service running
efficiency.
Figure 3-2 Conversion from a single path to multi-path

Figure 3-3 Conversion from a single switch to dual-switch

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Chapter 4 Application Scenario
4.1 Typical Networking
The UltraPath can apply to any networking with the AS and storage arrays that
are installed with OSs (Windows, Linux, and AIX). The UltraPath provides
multi-path solution for the AS to access storage arrays, thus improving security,
reliability, and maintainability of enterprise data storage.
Figure 4-1 shows the single controller, single HBA, and direct networking. In this
way, the single path failure can be avoided. When one path fails, the services on
the faulty path can be quickly switched to another path.
Figure 4-1 Single controller, single HBA, and direct networking

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Figure 4-2 shows the single switch and dual-switch networking. The UltraPath
achieves path redundancy on a single storage controller, that is, multiple optimal
paths can be chosen to achieve I/O load balance, thus greatly increasing I/O
efficiency.
Figure 4-2 Single switch and dual-switch networking

Figure 4-3 Cluster dual-switch networking

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When the cluster networking adopts switches, failover and failback can be
achieved on a single node in the cluster and I/O load balance of multiple paths on
a single node can also be achieved, as shown in Figure 4-3.

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