Vmware ESX3i HBA failover not working

Question

I've just completed an installation of ESX3i, on a system with two qlogic HBA's, One is QLA2432 the other is a QLA2422 both are single port connected to a Clariion CX320

I've been following the "Vmware ESX Server Installation Checklist" Provided by EMC

One of the last steps of the checklist is to test the HBA failover, To simulate a failover i disabled one of the ports of the Cisco MDS9216A that one of hosts HBA is connected to .Once i had done this step, the VI client showed the links as "DEAD" and the shared storage was no loner available, i re-enable the port and the storage was one again avaiable. I checked the properties on the shared datastore and confirmed it was set to MRU. There are two paths listed in the 'manage paths' screen. One is Active and green the other is just listed as "On" When i click "Change" both paths are marked as "Enabled"

I would like ensure HBA redundancy is working on my host before going live, what other steps could i check?

dynamox · Answer

look for AranH posthttp://forums.emc.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=454073񮶹

dynamox · Answer

can you look in Connectivity Status and tell us what failover mode is set to ? Should be 1. Are both HBAs listed in Connectivity status ? Both are logged-in andgreen color (means they are part of a storage group) ?

Reg-Aus · Answer

All 4 HBA's are listed are set to 1. All are logged in, However two are green and two are blue.

Reg-Aus · Answer

Thank you, after following the steps in the link provided all the HBA's are now listed as Green.

I performed another test, by disabling the FC switch port and once again the shared storage disappeared from the "Storage" List in VI Client.

dynamox · Answer

reboot ESXi ...and then try your failover test again.

dynamox · Answer

cool ..i think you should be good to go.

Reg-Aus · Answer

Yes, i believe so, that is why there 4 paths listed

dynamox · Answer

ok, do you have each HBA zoned to SPA and SPB ?

Reg-Aus · Answer

Thank you, that fixed it. Once i disabled the switch port 'Manage Paths' in the Vi Client shows 4 paths, 2 dead and the other paths, one 'Active; and one 'On' Once i enabled the switch port, 3 paths come back as 'On' and one is listed as Active.

kelleg · Answer

I noticed that you listed two different HBA's - you might want to be sure that these two HBA's are using the same drivers.

EMC does not support hosts with different HBAs - usually this was meant for mixing Qlogic and Emulex connecting to the same array. I'm not sure if this applies to the same HBA vendor (Qlogic) using different models.

glen

dynamox · Answer

heheh ..i just remember that you provided the answer for this type of problem ..so i keep referencing your post over and over ..to keep it from getting buried very deep ..but really ..i am too lazy to retype it myself

CLARiiON

Vmware ESX3i HBA failover not working

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