Serviceguard Lock LUN within VMware Server 2.0 Beta 2

[Erick Arturo Perez]

For those who seek to deploy a test/production SG Linux using VMWARE Server.

As of VMware Server 2.0 Beta 2, you still cannot use LOCK LUNs with SG Linux (tested A.11.18.01-0). You must use a Quorum Server but the Quorum server can be a VM in the same physical host that is running the node(s).

Tested:
windows 2003 64 bit (HOST)
VMware Server 2.0 Beta 2
RHEL 5.1 x86_64 (VM 1 node1)
RHEL 5.1 x86_64 (VM 2 node2)
RHEL 5.1 x86_64 (VM 3 quorum server)
SG A.11.18.01-0.rpm

remember to read:
http://pubs.vmware.com/server1/admin/wwhelp/wwhimpl/common/html/wwhelp.htm?context=admin&file=ha_configs_scsi-res_gsx.html

for your shared disks to work.

Cheers,

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

I'm surprised you expect SG to work on any beta OS.

I am nearly 100% certain HP does not support that.

SEP

[Erick Arturo Perez]

Hi Steve,

My post was meant to be a guide to those who are testing SG under linux. I for example have a test lab with Microsoft Virtual Server and VMWARE Server, this serves several purposes including a learning experience I cannot achieve on a production cluster. Since virtualization is so hot these days, it is obvious that some of us have virtual labs to install/destroy/rebuild SG clusters and microsoft clusters in order to learn.
I use Redhat and SuSe distributions to test SG.

In non-hp forums, it was once discussed the possibility to test LUN LOCKS under VMWARE. So the test showed that LUN LOCKS do not work under any version of VMWARE (beta or official) and Quorum Servers had to be used.

However with the introduction on version 2 of vmware server, many changes are present in the disk handling mechs, so it was a good time to test vmware server beta 2 with SG in linux redhat x86_64, to see if it worked, but it doesn't. This test can be posted to vmware forums. Maybe vmware will do something about it, maybe not but at least we contribute to the community and try to enhance the product.

Hey, as of today MS virtual server does not support 64 bit guest machines, and when vmware said they did then now microsoft is in a rush to do that too. So one can think if either MS or VMWARE do something (for fun or money) to change disk mechs in order to give at least "experimental" support to SG LUN LOCKS, then we all in the SG community will be winners.

Don't you think?

Cheers.

[Serviceguard for Linux]

Steven is correct in that we do not support VMware server. We do support VMWare ESX and LockLUN does work in that configuration.

http://docs.hp.com/en/12122/SGLX-VMware.pdf

But I do agree with Erick. Having this capability is nice for training and development purposes. I have actually used it myself for that same reason. We just can't take any support calls.

If I have a chance I'll look and see if I can figure out why it is not working. Since this is beta MAYBE :) VMware can do something.