VMWare ESX and Storage

[SAKET_5]

Hi All,

First day started looking into VMWare and how the shared storage works. I am sure some of you would have valuable real experience with this. So, basic setup of two Proliants running ESX servers interconnected via a ethernet cable - both these would host multiple VMs.

I presented EVA storage to the first box and when the person working on VMWare confirmed that it is safe to present this same storage to the second ESX server - I did so just as in a cluster setup. After a server reboot - only one of the ESX server would see the storage though - the other one even after the first one is shutdown will not see it.

Fabric zoning/EVA SSP are ruled out.

I have my doubts around SCSI preservations - can someone please share some knowledge and experience on whats missing - its probably something very basis.

Regards,
Saket.

[Uwe Zessin]

> Fabric zoning/EVA SSP are ruled out.

Fine, so you can see the LUNs in the adapter BIOS?
Which type of EVA is involved? Some models need different CUSTOM settings.

Anything in the logfile of server2? Did you check /proc/scsi ?
Are the Fibre Channel adapters available to the VMkernel or are they accidenty assigned to the COS only?

VMware ESX server uses SCSI reservations, but only during VMFS meta data changes.

[SAKET_5]

EVA 5000 (VCS V.3.028) - Host OS Type - Custom
Custom Type - 000000002200282E (as per VCS3.028 Release Notes)

The key point is ESX1 had access to the two Vdisks fine - it stopped seeing these Vdisks after SSP was granted for ESX2.

"SCSI Reservation" value under "Presentation" tab on the CV-EVA - is set to "None". I understand for say something like a Vdisk being accessed by a Tru64 Unix Cluster - one would normally see this value to be "Persistent". Any pointers here?

Any requirement of setting FCA BIOS level SCSI Persistent Reservation on the ESX Servers?

[Uwe Zessin]

VMware ESX V2 does not use persistent reservations. It uses SCSI-2 reservations, but only during metadata changes - else, a public/shared VMFS would not work. If you see a reservation in CV-EVA, it is either pure luck (timing) or a permanent problem.

I am not aware that you even can specify any reservations in the FCA BIOS.

Anything visible by:
# cat /proc/scsi/scsi
# dmesg | grep -C6 lun
# vmkmultipath -q

[SAKET_5]

root@esx1 /root# cat /proc/scsi/scsi
Attached devices: none

root@esx1 /root# dmesg | grep -C6 lun
root@esx1 /root# vmkmultipath -q
Disk and multipath information follows:

Disk vmhba0:0:0 (140,006 MB) has only 1 path.
-- This is the local disk as far as I know --

[Uwe Zessin]

Sounds like the server does not see the LUNs. Excuse me if I sound like a broken record, but did you check the visibility in the adapter BIOS?