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written by Zeljko Medic

August 6th, 2020

How to configure
HPE MSA 2050
I recently configured HPE MSA 2050.
Here is a short tutorial of how to do basic
configuration.

Tutorial will cover basic system setup,

storage and notification configuration.

Default IP address of the controllers (if

you don’t have DHCP server on network)
is:

controller A: 10.0.0.2/24

controller B: 10.0.0.3/24

username: manage

password: !manage
Here are some official HPE resources for
the MSA 2050:

SMU Reference Guide

User guide

Quick Start

Cable configuration guide

I have a model with 24 SFF drives and

8Gb FC ports.

For this tutorial I will be connecting FC

ports directly to Windows Server 2019 on
one of HPE Gen 10 servers.

This storage is pretty powerful and simple

to configure, it has its quirks, but overall
looks like a good choice.

Home screen

Here is how a home screen looks like.

Nothing yet to see. Click on Action button
– it will reveal System Settings. Click on
System Settings
There are a couple of thing here I would
like to point out.

Date and Time – configure this correctly,

you will need correct time. Enter NTP
server if you have it locally, or if storage is
allowed to the internet, enter public NTP.

Manage Users – You have two tabs – you

can specify local user – on storage, on
integrate it into LDAP. For this test unit, I
will configure local user. Enter username
and password, and select roles and
interfaces user can access. Make sure you
don’t lock yourself out of storage and
select Manage, Standard…
You can add additional users with only
one (or more) roles or interface access.

In Install License menu, you will add your

additional licenses you bought with
storage.

Network – I like to assign manual IP

addresses to all the important equipment.
Addresses you enter here (if you already
haven’t) will be addresses through you
manage your MSA 2050.

Services – in services menu, you will

define – services – you would like to have
active on your storage. I would
recommend HTTPS access only, SSH also
for CLI… Only thing that I would not
recommend is plain HTTP and FTP
services – use them only if you must. As
for other services – if you need them, go
ahead and enable them.

System information – enter System name

(that will be your storage name) and all
the other information you will find useful.

Notifications – very important part of the

interface, configure this so you can get
information on time if there is a warning
or error on your storage.

There are few tabs here, and you will

configure them according to your needs
and services you already have.

I would like to stress importance of first

tab – Email. It is also very quirky, and
would not work as expected in my case
(even with latest patches).

Here is configuration that worked for me:

SMTP server: instead of server name, I

had to enter IP address of my SMTP
server. So, instead of mail.informaticar.net
I needed IP address of that address.

Sender Domain: your domain name, in

my case informaticar.net

Sender Name: instead of full email

address, I had to enter only name of the
email address.

Port: only port 25 worked for me – not

ideal.

Security protocol – nothing worked for

me, no TLS or SSL, although I would very
much like to have it secured, but in my
production it is isolated so this will be ok
for me. Check if this is acceptable to you,
from security standpoint.

I enabled Critical, Error, Warning and

Resolved notifications and entered email
on which I would like to receive
notifications.

I also enabled Health Alerts and clicked

on Apply. After that I clicked on Test
Email, and got nothing – no test
notification on my email!

To be honest I lost a lot of time

troubleshooting this, since it is crucial part
of my system to get notifications in time
through every channel possible.

In the end, Test Email button does not

work in my case, setup is good, but Test
Email will not trigger notifications.
Notifications work, but Test Email button
does not work.
In the end, I tested notifications by
unplugging one of the cables of power
supply – it worked.

So, notifications work with this rather odd

setup, in which you will not get test
emails.

Last setting is Ports – you can fine tune

port speeds here, according to your needs.
I left everything on Auto in this scenario.

That is it, we did simple system setup.

System

Under System menu you can preview

your MSA 2050 disk/module population
and status of components.

Front view – if can see how much disks

you have in your storage and details
about every disk if you click on it.

Rear – you can see ports, IP addresses,

status of the ports and PSUs – same as in
Front view.

Table view will get you status of all

components in comprehensive view.

If you click on Action button – you will

get System Settings – same as on Home
menu, but you will also get a few new
options. I would like to point out Update
Firmware here.

Update Firmware menu

At the time of writing this, my firmwares

are all up to date. I recommend updating
all firmwares before proceeding with
configuration. If you have multiple
storages that will work together, in cluster
– make sure that they have same firmware
versions on them.

How will you check if you have latest

firmware, and how will you update you
MSA 2050 firmware?
Here you can find information on latest
firmware for MSA 2050

https://h41111.www4.hpe.com/storage/
msafirmware.html

There are controller, enclosures, disk

firmwares on this page.

Under Download Pages you can find links

to the firmware

I will click on Windows download for

2050/2052 MSA Controller firmware
version VL270P003-01

Here is how page looks like. There is a

Download button, but it has green
padlock next to it, what does it mean?
You will need to login to HPE website
(create HP Passport, if you don’t have
account already) and register your
storage.
After you logged in to your HPE account
(I won’t provide link, since links are
changing) you will need to “Clam an HPE
storage device”. You will need serial
number, product number, SAID and SAR
– SAID and SAR IDs you can get from the
company you bought your storage from.
We had to ask for these, since our supplier
did not initial gave these numbers to us,
and this info is not on the controller itself.

After you registered your storage you can

proceed and download your firmware.

After you downloaded firmware files you

can upload them to your controller by
clicking Browse on the bottom of your
Update Firmware page. You will ned to
repeat this procedure for Expansion
Modules and Disks, if there are firmware
updates for them.

In case upload doesn’t work, you can

upload files via FTP or SFTP and update
that way.

More details on firmware updates can be

found on page 67 of this manual:

https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/
docDisplay?docId=a00017707en_us

Hosts

Hosts part will probably differ in you case

if you don’t have FC enabled MSA 2050.

On host tab I will create connection

between MSA 2050 and my server.
Through this connection server will get
storage from MSA 2050.

Here is my setup for Hosts part:

For this tutorial I connected MSA 2050 to
my HP Gen 10 server. To connect MSA
2050 with FC ports to your server directly
you will need HBA card in your server.
HBA card in my case is HP SN1100E2P.

You will also need to install piece of

software on your server so you can control
installed HBA card.

For SN1100E2P card that software is

OneCommand Manager and it is installed
in Windows Server 2019.

Ok, back to the MSA 2050. In the

screenshot above, you can see that I
already opened Actions menu, and only
possible option is
Create Initiator

Ok, so lets create Initiator ( I already did it

as you can see from the screenshot above,
but lets repeat.)

Initiator ID (WWN/IQN) – where would

you find it?

You will head back to your server, and

open you OneCommand Manager, there
under the port you connected ( I
connected port 0) under Port Attributes
tab you will find Port WWN. Enter port
WWN into MSA 2050 Initiator ID as I did
above. Initiator Name can be of your
liking. When you are done, confirm with
ok.

Now, your Hosts menu will look like this

when you created Initiator connections.
In OneCommand Manager on your
Server, you will also get new additions
under your ports (connection details from
MSA 2050)

Ok ,that is it. You now have connection

between MSA 2050 and Server, we will
head on to configure storage.

One little note, it is very possible that

Hosts will get automagically configured
after you plug in SFP cables from your
MSA 2050 controllers to your
server/switch.

Pools

In Pools sections we will create RAID

groups from our disks. I will show you
procedure, but you will have to decide
what is best for your scenario. Your disk
setup may vary, and purpose of MSA 2050
you bought may vary.

How will you configure your RAID group

depends on how much data will be
written or read on your MSA 2050 – what
is more important to you – speed or extra
reliability…

Ok, my Pools screen is empty, so let’s

configure it.

Add Disk Group – so, lets see what I did –

I selected RAID 6 – I got to select from
RAID 0, 1, 5,6, 10. I selected RAID 6 – why
did I selected RAID 6 – for this setup
speed is not from utmost importance, and
I want extra layer of security. I “wasted”
3.6TB of space because of this decision.

Also, I left out one SAS disk in slot 12

from this configuration. I will make it my
spare drive for this configuration.
FYI – I couldn’t mix 800GB SSD drives
with this configuration – I left them out
(on purpose).

Pool is created.

Next, from Action menu I will

select Manage Spares

I will select 1.8TB drive in location 12 and

make it global hot spare. Confirm with
Add Spares
After I reopen Manage Spares, we can see
that disk is assigned as global spare.

After you created Pool, if you select Pool

and then click on Action button, you will
now get options to manage it. I will
select Disk Group Utilities because it will
show me how far did my Pool
initialisation is going so far…

Ok, so I’m at 3% of disk initialization.

Under Pool Thresholds menu in Action
you can define thresholds for your pool,
and set them according to your needs.

Now, before we leave Pools menu, we will

have to do one more thing. If you noticed,
I left out two SSD drives of 800GB size. I
have done it on purpose. I want these
SSD drives to act as a cache for MSA
2050 RAID group.

Back to Action – Add Disk Group

Now, all I got are two 800GB drives in

slots 1 and 2. I will select them, and then
under Type I will select Read Cache. Add

Ok, we are now done.

To recap, I created RAID 6 group with the

size of 12.5TB, I alocated 1.8TB disk in bay
12 as a global hot spare, and 800GB SSDs
in bay 1 and 2 as Read Cache drives.
This is the configuration that will be great
for my scenario.

Volumes

After we created Pool, next we will define

Volumes on created Pool.

I will create two volumes – one will be

11.5TB in size for data, and one will be of
900GB size for VMs and such. I left a bit of
space empty just to be sure in an
unknown situation (disks almost full for
example)

Action – Create Virtual Volume

I defined name for the volume, size as I

already said, you can set preference to
your liking, as archive, performance or no
affinity. When you are done – OK
I created two volumes, as I already
mentioned, and this is how that looks like.

After you select created volume, there are

a couple more options that you can
configure.

I will just mention Modify Volume,

mainly because it is menu in which you
can expand your volumes – I will need
that in the future for sure. That is also
place where you define caching options.
Mapping

In the end, MSA 2050 is very intuitive –

we connected it to server via FC, created
pool of disks, created volumes of those
pools, and now we will map these
volumes to the server we connected
earlier.

Action – Map
From the left side I will select both
initiators I created in Hosts menu, and
from Volumes, I will select both volumes I
created. Click on green Map button below
them

After you clicked on Map, this is the

result, modify settings according to your
needs. I’m done so I will select Apply –
OK

Mapping is done
Now, quickly from MSA 2050 to Windows
Server…

In your Windows Server machine you will

now probably have situation like this.
Great, Windows Server can see disks, but
this is also not good.

We will need to enable multipathing in

Windows (MPIO). I won’t go into details
with this procedure, this is only a short
reminder what needs to be done.

In Control Panel, click on MPIO, go to

Discover Multi-Paths, select MSA 2050
SAN and click on Add.
You will also be asked to reboot server for
changes to apply – have that in mind and
schedule a reboot.

After Reboot if you go back to Control

Panel – MPIO, you will see HPE MSA
2050 SAN on the MPIO Devices list.
Also, if you go to the Disk Management,
you will now only see one disk of 838GB
and 10.7TB size – MPIO is working.

Replications

I really don’t have anything to show here,

since in this test scenario I won’t be
configuring replication of MSA 2050
Performance

In Performance menu you can see stats for

your disks, volumes, pools, host ports…
Really useful statistics for monitoring…

Bottom of the screen

Bottom row of the screen shows status of

enclosure, controllers, warnings, errors,
informational logs, storage capacity and
I/O performance at glance.

If you for example click on little triangle

next to events portion of the screen, you
can select to Show Event List

Event list will show warnings, errors, info

from your MSA 2050

Conclusion

This was simple MSA 2050 configuration

scenario, this system is much more
capable, but I hope this gave you a rough
overview of simple functions on it.

Disclaimer

Posted in Various · Tagged configure msa

2050, email setup msa 2050, firmware update
msa 2050, how to configure HPE MSA 2050,
MSA 2050 configure SSD as cache, MSA
2050 update firmware, notifications settings
MSA 2050, setup email msa 2050, setup MSA
2050
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