How to refresh multipath configuration without server restarting

We use SAN for Oracle RAC databases. SAN organized via QLogic HBA's among other things. Hardware is HP's.

Quite often we need add new disks, or new filesystems, or new partitions etc. on storage area, which requires rebuilding our multipath configuration. How to do in without restarting the server ? Follow the next.

1. Present newly created disk to the server inside storage configuration.

2. Rescan all HBAs by

hp_rescan -a.

3. Restart multipathd.

4. Update /etc/multipath.conf (if necessary, in case  of new disk names, for an instance).

5. Run

multipath -ll

and create necessary partition table (with help of fdisk, for example) on one of the devices, related to the new disk.

6. Update partition table of other devices, related to the new disk, using

blockdev --rereadpt device_name

7. Update multipath device using

kpartx -a /dev/mapper/multipath_device_name

8. At that point you can create filesystem on it.