# Configuring MegaRAID for MUR Applications

CISCO UCS servers support a MegaRAID controller. This allows for configuring the UCS hard disks into hardware RAID arrays. The MegaRAID controller provides the BIOS utility for configuring the RAID. This chapter describes how to configure MegaRAID; this is for Mobility Unified Reporting System (MUR) applications only.

Option Recommendations

The following options are recommended for MUR applications:

- Separate disk arrays for the Operating System, MUR, and the Postgres (data directory).
- RAID level. This is a combination of five (5) and zero (0) depending on the fault tolerance.
- Stripe size should be 256KB.

The following RAID Controller parameters for use in the Virtual Drive Definition screen are recommended:

- Read Policy - Adaptive Read-Ahead.
- Write Policy - Write Back.
- I/O Policy - Direct I/O.

Sample Configuration

In the following example, the UCS server has 12 disks each of 280GB. The disks are configured into the following three groups:

- Single (1) disk in RAID-0 for the OS.
- RAID-0 array with four (4) disks for the MUR application.
- RAID-5 array with seven (7) disks for the Postgres Database.

Creating Virtual Drives

Use the following steps to create virtual drives.

1. While the system is booting, press <Ctrl> <H> to start the WebBIOS utility.
2. Press Start to enter the utility. If the drives are already configured, the screen will show the current RAID configuration with virtual drives for all the RAID disk groups. Otherwise, the drives display as unconfigured.
3. From the left pane, select Configuration Wizard.

   IMPORTANT:

   In the event that there are already any unwanted virtual drives configured, select the Clear Configuration radio button in the Wizard to delete the default virtual drives.
4. Select the New Configuration radio button to start creating virtual drives. If you did not delete any drives in the previous step and want to configure them now, select the Add Configuration radio button.
5. Press Next and then select Manual Configurationto open the Drive Group Definitions screen.
6. Click on the first disk in the list (Slot 1). This disk is the single disk selected to be the virtual drive for the operating system and it will be added to Drive Group0. Select Drive Group0 and press the Accept DG button.
7. To configure the next drive group in this example, use the <Ctrl> key to select the next four disks (Slots 2 through 5) and press the Add to Array button. This creates Drive Group1.
8. Use the same method to select the remaining four disks and create Drive Group2.

You are now ready to configure the spans. Spans are used to take Drive Groups and use them to create a nested RAID array.

1. Press Nextto open the Span Definition screen. Because this example only considers RAID-0 and RAID-5 arrays, the span will be created with only one group.
2. Select Drive Group0 and press the Add to Span button when it activates.
3. Press Next to open the Virtual Drive Definition screen. This is where RAID parameters are configured for the Disk Groups created earlier.
4. Complete this screen using the example parameters found in the Option Recommendations section in this document.

   IMPORTANT:

   In the Select Size drop-down box, enter the disk size in either GB or TB. For information on exact sizes, the screen shows the possible sizes of the drive for the various RAID levels. Select the appropriate size as per the RAID level selected and press the Accept button.
5. Pressing the Accept button opens a confirmation page where you confirm a Battery Backup Unit (BBU) is installed when using the Write Back with BBU policy option in the Virtual Drive Definition screen in Step 3. Press Yes to confirm.
6. Press the Back button to return to the Span Definition screen. Repeat the steps to add Disk Group1 and Disk Group2 to separate spans and configure the RAID parameters.
7. Press the Accept button to confirm the configuration.
8. Save the configuration and the utility will initialize the drives and display a final screen displaying the new virtual drives.
9. If necessary, check the properties for the drives by pressing the Back button to go back to the Main menuContinue to the next section to set the boot drive.

Setting the Boot Drive

You created a separate drive for the operating system and added it to DriveGroup0 earlier. Use the following steps to set this drive as the boot drive.

1. From the Main menu, select the Virtual Drives option in the left pane.
2. Select the drive created for the operating system,
3. Select the Set Boot Drive radio button.
4. Press the Go button to change the settings.
5. Press the Exit button to save the changes and exit the utility.