BC VMFS on EVA 4400

[Dusan Stefanovic]

Hello everyone

I installed on 5 blade server ESX 3.5 U3. All ESX servers are installed localy. After that I make some luns on EVA storage and presented it to ESX servers. All presented luns are with VMFS and all VM will be on them (some luns are presented to more ESX servers, cause I make HA, DRS and vmotion solutions).
I have BC license installed on EVA. My question is what is best practices for making snapshot and snapclones for those luns:
1. Do I need to shutdown all VM before making snapclone or snapshot if I want ot keep my data consistant?
2. What is procedure if I want to mount shapshot on different ESX server?
3. What is procedure if I want to mount shapshot on same ESX server?

[shIVinator.]

If you do not shutdown the VMs, when you snapshot the VMFS the guest OS or data LUN may be corrupt when you try to bring it up.

To mount the LUN you will need to present it in CV and then on the ESX side you will need to change the LVM setting *LVM.DisallowSnapshotLun* to 1 in the advanced settings of the configuration tab.

You can also use VMware's VCB as well, rather than BC.

Duane

[Uwe Zessin]

> *LVM.DisallowSnapshotLun*

This setting is another means of telling an ESX server: "I promise that I do not present you any snapshot volumes - please ignore any attempts to identify snapshot volumes / incorrect LUN addresses".

Be *VERY*, *VERY*, *VERY*, *VERY*, *VERY* careful with this setting. If you use it incorrectly you can corrupt data !!

[Dusan Stefanovic]

Thank's