VMware SRM using EMC VMAX

Hello EMCUSEREMC,

Welcome to EMC Community.

I have 2 questions..

Q1: Do you have symauth configured? If yes, then you may have permissions misconfiguration issue.

Q2: Does this error return from VSI referring to R1 devices? if yes, then this is something expected. VSI SRA Utilities, on the 'failover test' tab is only looking for R2 devices, not R1 devices.  Before you look into this issue, be sure you are looking at an ESXi host that has R2 devices masked to it.  To confirm this check the EMC VSI tab > LUNs, look in the 'type' column.

VSI SRA Utilities from the R2 side should work properly however, it will display this message from R1 side. This can be ignored.

Kindly find these 2 KB articles form EMC support:

https://support.emc.com/kb/91895

https://support.emc.com/kb/87124

Hope that helps

Mohammed Salem

Hello Salem,

I am not sure about symauth and where to confiure

I am checking from DR side. EMC VSI tab > LUNs shows the gatekeeper devices and one LUN (Which is used for placholder datastore). Because i could at least see this, do you still think that symauth is not configured?

Regards

Like AranH pointed out, Are you sure that the R2 devices are zoned and masked to your ESXi servers at the DR site?

I would recommend reading Drew's awesome techbook for further clarification of steps needed:

https://support.emc.com/docu38641_Using-the-EMC-SRDF-Adapter-for-VMware-vCenter-Site-Recovery-Manager-5.pdf?language=en_US

You can check symauth using this command:  symauth -sid xxx list, It will state whether symauth is enabled or disabled.

Hope that helps

Mohammed Salem

There are many steps on each side of the replication to follow before the testing will be successful. That error usually means that the RDF pairs are not visible becuase the configuration is not complete.

The techbook below on deploying VMware SRM using SRDF contains a comprehensive checklist and step by step setup procedures. I recommend reviewing the checklist and following the steps outlined in this techbook. I have performed a few SRM RDF deployments and it is easy to miss a step if you aren't following the instructions carefully.

http://www.emc.com/collateral/software/technical-documentation/h10553-sra-vmware-5-0-tb.pdf

Hello,

R2 Devices are not zoned to DR ESXi hosts. For the TimeFinder/Clone set-up, do we need clones also needs to be zoned to DR ESXi hosts?

Regards,

Yes, the R2 and clones of R2 need to be visible to the DR vSphere cluster. Since SRM is a host level coordination of array level replication the devices need to be visible to the hosts on each end of the replication.

Thanks EMCUSEREMC, You should replace XXX with the last 3 or 4 digits of your array SN. for instance, if Array SN: 0009996545676 then you should replace xxx with 676 or 5676

To get the array SN, run this command : "symcfg disco" then "symcfg list"

Hope that helps

Mohammed Salem

Thanks AranH and Salem for all your valuable information.

Saleem, for the command  "symauth -sid xxx list", what should i replace with xxx?

Regards,

Drew, please correct me if i am wrong. I believe this is only for VSI SRA utilities v5.6 where we have a new feature for masking control included in the Global options.

Discovery should fail if R2s are not masked to the recovery site in the initial setup.

Hope that helps

Mohammed Salem

Drew Tonnesen wrote: Actually the devices don't have to be presented to the R2 cluster but that is an advanced configuration - page 150 of the TechBook.

Is that the default behavior?

No it is an advanced configuration.

Actually the devices don't have to be presented to the R2 cluster but that is an advanced configuration - page 150 of the TechBook.

M.Salem wrote: Like AranH pointed out, Are you sure that the R2 devices are zoned and masked to your ESXi servers at the DR site? I would recommend reading Drew's awesome techbook for further clarification of steps needed: https://support.emc.com/docu38641_Using-the-EMC-SRDF-Adapter-for-VMware-vCenter-Site-Recovery-Manager-5.pdf?language=en_US You can check symauth using this command:  symauth -sid xxx list, It will state whether symauth is enabled or disabled. Hope that helps Mohammed Salem

We linked to the same document, just two different locations that it is posted. :-)

Yes masking control is a global option used in testing or DR.  I thought the customer is trying to configure clone/snap devices for testing - he talks about VSI and that he has protection groups created.  If he is having basic issues setting up SRM he doesn't need VSI yet.

Drew is right, you do not need the R2 masked with the automasking feature.

@Mohammed: Even for the initial discovery, the devices are discovered from the SE hosts. But the only discrepancy I see is if the “filter non-vmware devices” is enabled. Doesn’t that authenticate with the respective Vcenter’s and filter out what is not visible in the Vcenter inventory?

Without the filter though, I’m pretty sure there should be no issues with the R2 unmasked.

Maybe Drew could confirm this.

Thanks & Regards,

Karan