Automatic start OVC after crash ESXi

[Sjoerd2106]

I was wondering if there was a SimpliVity approved way to start the virtual controller automatically after a crash of the ESXi node?

I did find this article on this forum: https://community.hpe.com/t5/HPE-SimpliVity/Autostart-OmnistackVC-Controller-VM-after-exit-Maintanence-Mode/td-p/7009251

Does the same apply for recovery after a crash?

[Josh94K]

@Sjoerd2106 
Hope you are doing well!

Whenever there is a crash, we more or less have no other option than rebooting the host to bring it back to a responsive state

Procedure 

• Reboot the host
• Monitor The POST for any H/W error and check accordingly 
• if no error shows up, let the host boot up and then check the OVC VM status
• If it is not Powered on automatically - power it on manually and monitor the boot-up of SVTFS
• once healthy you can check for HA and investigate for any fault on the SVT end
• If none, host troubleshooting needs to be done
• once the host is up you can remove the same from the maintenance mode. 

@Sjoerd2106  I hope this helps!
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Note: "While I am an HPE Employee, all of my comments (whether noted or not), are my own and are not any official representation of the company."

[Sjoerd2106]

Hello Josh,

Thank you for this information. The thing I'm most interested in, is what you say in this line: "If it is not Powered on automatically - power it on manually and monitor the boot-up of SVTFS".

Is there indeed an official way to automatically boot the Omnistack Virtual Controller virtual machine, after a ESXi crash and reboot? Or do you always have to manually boot the OVC vm after a ESXi crash?

[Steven Clementi]

The OVC is set to automatically turn on after ESXi is booted up.  The only time it does not turn on is when the host is first placed into maintenance mode and then rebooted... for obvious reasons, the OVC will not turn on.

Personally, I do not like this behaviour since there should be an issue with the server causing it to reboot several times and you would not want to have to wait for the OVC to fully come online only to shut it down again, or have the server crah again... so you should be able to disable the startup if you'd like to... to always manually control the process.

[Sjoerd2106]

Thank you Steven!

We were in a situation where the SimpliVity node was rebooted by pulling the power cords as a redundancy test for the cluster (so no maintenance mode). The OVC did not startup automatically after the reboot, so I guess we will have to create a support ticket for this matter with HPE support.

Thanks again