Unmount datastore when change EMC AX Storage failover mode

[hhk8484]

Hi,

Currently we found that the failover mode in EMC AX is 4, but according to EMC support, AX only support failover mode: 1. Thus, EMC support recommend to change it. They highly recommended to have the data store/volumes unmounted (after VM vmotion to another ESX) from the ESX host before changing the failover mode. After that, host must be rebooted

Current Environment:

1. One cluster with six vSphere 4.1 (ESX01-ESX06)

2. Totally 35 VM in this cluster

3. 7 x Datastore

My planning is:

1. Move all VM out from ESX01 to the rest of  five ESX (ESX02-ESX06)

2. Configure EMC AX failover mode to 1

3. Reboot ESX01

4. Bring up ESX01, and verify all datastore still able to access

5. Continue ESX02-ESX06 from step 1-5

My question now is: how and where should I do "Unmount datastore" which was recommended by EMC support? Is it a must to do?

I have done some research, but I found that if I need to unmount datastore then i need to make the datastore become inactive. Am i right? If datastore inactive, doesnt means that the datastore inactive in all ESX?

VMware KB: Removing a LUN containing a datastore from VMware ESXi/ESX 4.0 and 4.1

Any suggestion for my planning? Hope can get answer from Vmware expert at here. Thanks alot.

Regards

Ho

[pavitb]

Hi

If EMC recommends unmounting the datastores before changing the failover mode, it should mean unmounting datastores from all ESXi servers and not just one of them.

If you unmount a datastore from one of the ESXi hosts in a cluster, the other hosts will still have the datastore mounted. But changing the failover mode while the datastores are still mounted on ESXi servers doesn't seem to be favorable according to EMC.

You could do the following:

1. Shut Down all VMs. Disable Storage DRS if enabled. Disable HA because one of the datastores must be in use for HA heartbeats.

2. Unmount all datastores from all ESXi hosts.

3. Configure EMC AX failover mode to 1.

4. Reboot hosts.

5. Mount the datastores and check access (should remain intact after you've mounted them back).

The option to unmount datastores should appear here:

Select Host -> Storage -> Configuration -> Select datastore to be unmounted -> Right Click on the datastore and select unmount. In the pop-up which will then appear, you'll see be a list of checks vcentre server would have run before you can continue to unmount.

Pavit

[hhk8484]

Hi Pavit, thanks for your reply

I cannot find "unmount datastore" option in the path you mention (Host -> Storage -> Configuration -> Select datastore to be unmounted -> Right Click on the datastore and select unmount). My ESX version is 4.1, after i right click on the datastore, it dont have "Unmount". Is version support on Unmount? (I have disable HA, and no VM sit in this test datastore)

Really appreciate for your advice.

Regards

Ho

[brunofernandez1]

if you shut down the esxi server you don't have to unmount the datastores. shutting down the esx server is the same as you would unmount them. by starting the esxi server then the esxi server remount the datastores/luns automatically...

btw. in vpshere 4 i you only have remove/delete and not unmount the datastores...

[hhk8484]

How about disable ESX HBA card instead of shutdown the host? any command in ESX can be done?

many appreciate