P4000 SAN/iQ9.0 & Hyper-V application-managed snapshot error

[Lyndon Frei]

I've recently installed the latest SAN/iQ9.0 components including the CMC, DSM for MPIO and VSS provider because release notes suggested support for application-managed snapshots of CSVs.

I'm running a 5-node Windows 2008 R2 SP1 Hyper-V cluster connected to 3 CSVs with NetRaid5 running on a 3-node P4500 cluster, but unfortunately get an error message as seen in the attached screenshot stating an application-managed snapshot could not be taken due to CMC not beeing able to communicate with the application server allthough I seem to have followed all prerequisites in the manuals.

But documentation is rather inconclusive regarding VSS and consistent snapshots. On one hand there is the Windows solution manual describing the authentication console where to supply credentials in order to create application-managed snapshots with the help of the VSS requestor. But I miss an explanation if the these credentials actually correspond to a full-administrator within CMC. On the other hand there is also a hint in the release notes saying you no longer need to add credentials when using the VSS provider, but explains how to create them.

Since the error mentions communication problems I guessed maybe the VSS requestor gets commands from the storage nodes or the CMC to quiesce I/Os so I've also tried disabling Windows firewalls on all cluster nodes, but to no avail. None of the manuals actually explaine any TCP/IP communications concerning VSS snapshoting anyway.

Moreover I've read a few other posts in the forum with similar problems and even warnings of malfunctionings and data corruption! I'm beginning to believe this feature still is quite buggy and not yet ready for productive use...

Any insights?

Lyndon