topic Re: LUSE on VMWare ESX in Disk Enclosures

LUSE on VMWare ESX

avamar11 — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:08:01 GMT

Hi ,
Due to space constraints ,we created a LUSE of 3 LUNS (20 GB each from different Parity Group ) and presented it VMware server 3.5 Now VMware sees it as 3 different disk each of 20 GB .
Can anyone help ?

Thanks in advance ...

Re: LUSE on VMWare ESX

Uwe Zessin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:25:48 GMT

You can combine them into one datastore by using extents (it is not RAID-0 but concatination).
Create a VMFS datastor on the first disk. Select this datastore's properties and a new windows should pop up. There is a button which allows you to [add extent].

Re: LUSE on VMWare ESX

avamar11 — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:57:04 GMT

thanks ...it can resolve the issue .but i would like to know why LUSE is showing as 3 different disk ?

Re: LUSE on VMWare ESX

Uwe Zessin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 13:01:42 GMT

Maybe we use different terminology, but 3 LUNs make up 3 visible disks to me. You don't say what storage array is involved, but some boxes allow the concatination to happen _inside_ the array and present it as one external LUN/disk. I think EMC calls this a 'meta-LUN'.

Re: LUSE on VMWare ESX

krusty — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 02:30:03 GMT

A LUSE is a combination of 2 or more LDEVs (that's what the XP calls the "chucks of space" inside the array) as one LUN. It is most commonly used for Windows environments.

I do not know how the VMWare kernel can "see inside the LUN" and see there are three LDEVs. When you present the LUSE, you give it a LUN # (probably "0" since you only have one LUN) so I don't know if you did it correctly. If you present the three LDEVs as three LUNs (0,1,2) then it is not a LUSE.

Could you verify that is the case?

Cheers,

Curt

Re: LUSE on VMWare ESX

Peter Mattei — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 07:40:40 GMT

You must have set up individual LUNs and did not include the LDEVs properly in a LUSE.
A LUSE is always seen as one LUN only!

Dont forget to set the host mode to 21 - VMware Extension.

See the LUN Manager Guide on http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01956284/c01956284.pdf

Cheers
XP-Pete