MSA2012fc - paths to VMware following firmware

[Joshua Small_2]

Hi,

Last night we upgraded our MSA2012fc, (G1) from a much older firmware, to  J201R09-01.

Prior to the upgrade, paths in VMware were four to each LUN. In short, each HBA on our server had a path to each controller. These were working fine.

Subsequent to this upgrade, each LUN appears to only list two paths. After some investigation we've noted that it's listing paths to that LUN's owner.

For example, we have LUN A and LUN B, owned by Controller A and Controller B respectively. If I look at the paths available for LUN A, it has one path for each HBA, to Controller A. The paths for LUN B lists one path for each of the HBAs to Controller B.

I believe this is "OK" in that, in the event of a controller failure, the LUN owner will change, and VMware will notice this.

My major concerns is that this appears to be a change based on a firmware update, and I'm not fully sure WHY.

The ESXi servers are using VMW_SATP_ALUA and PSP_RR. I did find some posts around the G1 not supporting ALUA, but they were all using this same SATP before the upgrade, so I'm keen to avoid changing it.

Any assistance appreciated.

[Joshua Small_2]

Hi,

I'm just looking to bump this. I've been down the road of following this up with VMware but kept coming back to the SAN.

It does leave me nervous about how well our SAN will manage a controller failover, such as during the next firmware update.

Everything I can think of leads me to suggest this is a bug in the most recent firmware.