Controller interface cable swap

Before I can answer that with 100% certainty can you tell me a little more about the current environment? Like what model of EQL array is it? What kind and how many switches are connected to the array? Also how do you have the EQL array cabled to the switches? I look forward to hearing back from you.

PS6110

Cisco 4507 with dual 10GbE line cards - One controller eth slot per card

Thanks

Brendan

With the setup that you have I greatly recommend that you not do this until you have a maintenance window that allows you some down time. As the failover on this array will NOT allow you to swap the cables and stay up and running with no issues. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused but for security of your data you will need down time to complete this.

It does have a failover but it is called vertical port failover.

Vertical port failover behavior in PS4110/PS6110 controllers:

In PS Series controllers prior to PS4110/6110 families, a link failure or a switch failure was not recognized as a failure mode by the controller. This caused a failure of a link or an entire switch to reduce bandwidth available from the array. Referring to Figure 4 or Figure 5, assume that CM0 is the active controller. In vertical port failover, if CM0 senses a link drop on the local ETH0 port connection path, it will automatically begin using the ETH0 port on the backup controller (CM1). Vertical port failover is bi-directional. If CM1 is the active controller then vertical port failover will occur from CM1 ports to CM0 ports if necessary.

I hope that helps you understand the failover process on this array. It can also be found in the EQL Configuration Guide. Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Thanks for your reply Kenny, so I get my head around the logic, the two controllers in each member are active, not active passive? So there is no redundancy?? I understood the idea behind the two controllers would mean some sort of failover.

Cheers

Getting there now :)

Each 6110 member has two controllers CM1 & 2, one sits above the other, not two ETH interfaces on the same card, from what you have said "In vertical port failover, if CM0 senses a link drop on the local ETH0 port connection path, it will automatically begin using the ETH0 port on the backup controller (CM1)"

That sounds like we could achieve the shutdown after all?

Thanks for your time, new to storage