SimpliVity Deployment Manager NS204i-P

[Convergo]

SimpliVity Deployment Manager needs a clean logical volume to install the OS on the hosts, and it will take care of creating the logical volumes for the data disks. If it encounters problems during this process due to old volumes still available it will fail the deployment. 

How can we clean the NS204i-P logical volumes after a failure in deployment with the Deployment Manager ?

[gustenar]

Hello @Convergo 

As per the quickspecs: 

https://www.hpe.com/psnow/doc/a00094638enw.pdf 

"The HPE NS204i-u is a universal installation hot plug OS Boot Device that includes two 480GB M.2 NVMe SSDs. This device no longer takes up a PCIe slot, and auto-creates RAID1 volume."

"HPE NS204i presents itself to your management interface as a single directly connected NVMe drive, not a RAID controller. As the NS204i is a hardware OS boot device, only RAID 1 mode is supported and it will not operate in any other RAID mode. HPE NS204i is “plug-and-play” with no need to configure or manage the device. Always ensure you are running the latest iLO version and update server BIOS, FW and drivers when they become available."

Based on this information the process is automatic. Are you experiencing any issue during deployment?

[Convergo]

@gustenar 

Hi gustenar,

I am fully aware of the quickspecs, however the deployment manager discovers a previously installed ESXi OS on the NS204i-P and fails. The tinyusb gives the option to repartition the volumes however I am not sure the NS204i-P is also included. I wonder if there is anyone used redfish to do a post storage reset to defaults on the NS204i-P. In my opinion it should be an option in the tinyusb discovery image for SimpliVity nodes

[gustenar]

What version of SimpliVity are you installing? Support for the NS204i-p started on 4.1.3. I'm going to try and test this and come back. 

[Convergo]

@gustenar 

Hi Gustenar,

It is related to the latest versions of 4.2 and 5.0. I was informed that there is a tiny image available from support that gives you the possibility to do a factory reset. I requested these images for 4.2 and 5.0 with support, although I think these factory reset images should be public available in case of a redeployment

[Convergo]

Didn't received feedback from support, so I am wondering if and when these images will be available by support. Someone else has experience with this proces ?

[gustenar]

I checked the BIOS options for this NS204i-p device and didn't see a way to clear the RAID1 configuration, as it is to happen automatically. As for the full deployment images, they are no longer included in the deployment package because they are no longer required, but I see why you would want to try that way. The factory reset option may still not work with these newer NS204i-p devices though. I'm going to try to perform some tests and get back to you. 

[Convergo]

Hi,

Checked several scenario's and the RPI tool was usefull for redeployments of the system when using the tiny image associated with the deployment binaries:

[EduardoMoreira]

@Convergo Did you solve the issue?
Could you send us the procedure was executed?

Regards.