Preface

About this guide

This guide describes the following tasks and topics:

Preparing to install an FAS900 series cluster
How to cable a pair of FAS900 series appliances into a cluster
How to configure the cluster when it is first brought up
How to perform basic troubleshooting on the cluster

This guide does not cover basic system or network administration, which is covered in the Data ONTAP System Administration Guide.

Audience

This guide is for qualified system administrators and service personnel who are familiar with Network Appliance^TM equipment and who need to

Cable two systems into a standard or mirrored cluster system
Convert stand-alone systems into a standard or mirrored cluster system

Terminology

This guide uses the following terms:

Mirrored cluster refers to a cluster where the data of the local node contains an exact copy of the partner node's data, and vice versa.
Fabric Attached MetroCluster refers to a cluster running syncmirror_local and cluster_remote, where the nodes and disk shelves are attached to two pairs of Fibre Channel switches, where the nodes and disk shelves are not cabled together in traditional cluster fashion, and where the nodes are separated by more than 500 meters up to 30 kilometers.
Node refers to either the local or partner filer.
Standard cluster refers to a cluster that is in the same building or has the local and partner nodes directly connected to each other.
FC HBA for Disk or FC HBA refers to the Fibre Channel host bus adapter that connects the node to the switch or to the disks.

Command conventions

You can enter commands on the system console or from any client that has access to the system using Telnet. In examples of commands run on a UNIX® workstation, this guide uses the command syntax and output of SunOS 4.1x. If you use a different version of UNIX, the command syntax and output might be different.

Keyboard conventions

This guide uses capitalization and some abbreviations to refer to the keys on the keyboard. The keys on your keyboard might not be labeled exactly as they are in this guide.

What is in this guide...	What it means...
hyphen (-)	Used to separate individual keys. Example Ctrl-D means holding down the Ctrl key while pressing the D key.
Enter	Used to refer to the key that generates a carriage return, although the key is named Return on some keyboards.
type	Used to mean pressing one or more keys on the keyboard.
enter	Used to mean pressing one or more keys and then pressing the Enter key.

Formatting conventions

The following table lists the kinds of formatting this guide uses to identify special information.

Formatting convention	Type of information
Italic type	Words or characters that require special attention. Placeholders for information you must supply. For example, if the guide requires you to enter the `arp -d hostname` command, you enter the characters "arp -d" followed by the actual name of the host. Book titles in cross-references.
`Monospaced font`	Command and daemon names. Information displayed on the system console or other computer monitors. Contents of files.
`Bold monospaced` font	Words or characters you type. What you type is always shown in lowercase letters, unless you must type it in uppercase letters for it to work properly.

Special messages

This guide contains special messages that are described as follows:

Note
A note contains important information that helps you install or operate the system efficiently.

Caution
A caution contains instructions that you must follow to avoid damage to the equipment, a system crash, or loss of data.

WARNING
A warning contains instructions that you must follow to avoid personal injury.