Timentregas,

Currently we don't have a foreseeable release date, as we have to wait for Linux to create the Perc MegaRAID driver for it. Then we need to test and validate that. As Linux hasn't released the driver yet we can't say when or if it will be supported till then.

Let me know if this helps answer your question.

Well it answers the question but unfortunately does not help. What I don't understand is that at the time, acording to various press releases Dell was said to be currently developing the required linux support. It seems that the responsability is in fact not Dell's.

I would assume however that Dell would push for said drivers by participating in the linux kernel development and pushing for the controller support. Is Dell doing anything in this regards?

What I also don't understand is why VMware ESXi (which I beleive uses the Linux kernel) is already supporting the controller.

Follow up on my own question.

I ended up having to go to the Linux Kernel SCSI mailing list, where development occurs for such drivers as the MegaRAID. 

Firstly, a quick note, VMWare ESXi, uses the MegaRAID drivers, exactly as does Linux in general, so the reason for one getting support before the other is beyond me. In any case I do have good news from the mailing list which I quote here:

List: linux-scsi Subject: Re: Dell Shared PERC8 RAID Controller From: adam radford  Date: 2014-03-03 21:01:40 Message-ID: CAHtARFHALG5gCKRde0r3sZ=rv6stbDU14Q+1MpUxT5Z4pDS-5w () mail ! gmail ! com [Download message RAW]

Istvan/Emmanuel,

>> 08:00.0 RAID bus controller [0104]: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic MegaRAID
SAS 2208 IOV [Thunderbolt] [1000:002f] (rev 05)

I will be sending a driver patch for megaraid_sas to support the Dell
PowerEdge VRTX/Shared PERC8 device later this week.  This will allow
you to run Linux with the megaraid_sas in Virtual Function (VF) mode
on the VRTX blades.

-Adam

 So, when can expect the required support pretty soon. Then there will be other hurdles, such as getting the patch into mainstream linux distributions, getting offical support, etc. In anycase step 1 is definately nearly completed.

For those interested, Adam posted 2 days ago the patch for Shared PERC8 on scsi list. It will be integrated into 3.15 kernel. 3.15 is an inaccessible dream to people that use RHEL or SLES. Even RHEL 7 beta use 3.10. A backport of the patch to 3.10 is quite easy and I was able to get it working like a charm. I didn't even looked at 3.0 which is used by SLES 11.3 If you want to build the new megaraid_sas driver with Adam patch, be sure to pick Sumit Saxena's patch too + the repost. Cheers, Timhor

Thanks for this update timhor.

In my case I'm interested in RHEV (Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization) integration which is currently using kernel 2.6.32. I've already opened a feature request with Red Hat which can be followed here https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1075166