1. Oracle Storage Dual-Port 32 Gb Fibre Channel PCIe Low Profile HBA, Emulex Installation Guide For HBA Model 7335907
  2. Hardware Installation and Removal
  3. Best Practices for HBA Installation
  4. General Best Practices

General Best Practices

Follow these general best practices for installing and configuring the HBA:

  • Spread the I/O load among multiple HBAs and multiple ports to avoid bottlenecks and promote higher availability.

  • Use fixed link speeds instead of autonegotiation wherever possible. While the HBA supports autonegotiation, autonegotiation slows the system down in the event of a fabric rebuild.

  • Do not configure both tape devices and disks on the same HBA port, even if using a switch and zoning.

  • If more than one HBA model is present in the configuration, enable only the OptionROM (OpROM) for the first HBA seen in the boot sequence. There is a limited amount of space for OpROMs; therefore, do not unnecessarily enable all OpROMs, as space usage issues might occur.

  • When installing the HBA, be sure to also install the latest version (version 11.1.218.x or newer) of the command-line utility available from the manufacturer web site (see Installing Utilities for Updating the BIOS and Firmware). Keep the HBA utilities, firmware, and drivers up-to-date, and update them in that order.

  • After installing the OneCommand Manager CLI utility, ensure that the elxhbamgrd daemon process is running (The OneCommand Manager utility starts this daemon process, by default, upon installation.). In the event of a failure, the elxhbamgrd daemon produces a usable firmware dump for troubleshooting. The location of dump files varies, based on your operating system:

    • Windows: OneCommandManager-installation-directory \Util\Dump

    • Oracle Solaris: /opt/ELXocm/Dump

    • Linux: /var/log/emulex/ocmanager/Dump

    Firmware dumps are written to Flash memory on the HBA, and the files reside there until you manually extract and clear the files to produce room for new firmware dumps. A firmware dump cannot be overwritten in Flash. With the OneCommand Manager utility installed and running, if a failure occurs on the HBA, the utility captures and collects firmware dumps during boot up, and then automatically clears the Flash memory on the HBA. However, if the failure case does not capture the dump file, or the OnceCommand Manager utility is not running, you can manually run the OneCommand Manager utility in order to collect and capture the dump file.