Getting Partial / No Redundancy on VM's created on latest datastore

Question

First some background.

I'm in the process of upgrading my ESX servers from 3.5 to vSphere 4 and so far I have setup the new vCenter Server. Before I start the upgrade of the ESX, I needed more storage so I created 3 datastores from available space on my Equallogic PS6000 which has been connected for a while so as far as connectivity, nothing has changed. but now here's my problem,

I get a "Partial / No Redundancy" on any VM that I create in any of these new datastores. I can create VM's on any of the older datstores on LUN's from exactly the same Equallogic and it works fine, but not the new ones. Keep in mind that these new datastores are the only ones that were created under the new vCenter, so I believe it must have something to do with it.

Is anyone aware of any issues about creating datastored using the new vCenter but on a 3.5 ESX host?

ISCSI with QLogic QLE406x

Thanks in advance for nay help.

Germano

Answer 1

First, I'd double-check the LUN settings from the SAN perspective, and look for any "stray" connections. Is it set to allow multiple client access? (Can't remember the exact terminology, but it's basically saying "yes, I know what I'm doing, I'm not going to have 3 servers writing to an NTFS partition at once")

Security settings? I recommend manually specifying allowed IP addresses (ESX hosts and vcenter) - less cumbersome than by initiator name, less complicated that messing w/ chap (if not needed, we use a seperate iSCSI vlan), but specific enough to be reasonably secure and just eliminate any accidental access from something else.

Then make sure to have the ESX hosts re-scan storage devices and make sure the LUNs appear for all host. Under 3.5, you have to do this on each host, at least, I haven't found another way.