VMware ESXi 4.1 and HP StorageWorks MSL6000

[BitByteNybble11]

Good morning,

     I'm hoping that even if we can't my problem solved that this will at least point me in the right direction to fixing my issue.

     I have an HP StorageWork MSL6000 tape library that is currently connected via Fiber Channel to an HP BladeSystem c3000 Enclosure.  Our hope was to pass the tape library through to 3 blade servers currently housed in the enclosure and run Windows Server 2008 with Symantec Backup Exec 2010, using the tape library and tape drive passed through as a SCSI device.

     Our issue is this - When the MSL6000 is connected to the BladeSystem, ESXi detects two attached devices on the Fiber Channel card; a medium changer and an HP RAID device.

     Passing both of these devices through to the guest server running Backup Exec gives us the medium changer in Windows device manager but not the tape drive itself.  Also, any operations attempted on the library, such as an "Initialize", yeild that the job is "Ready, No idle devices available."  So operations on the library itself also fail.

     If anyone can assist in troubleshooting this issue with me I would appreciate it and if we discover that this is not a result of a VMware configuration issue, I will move on to HP and hope that they are able to work with me to resolve the issue.

Thank you.

[Ollfried]

Morning,

I have the same setup at a customer's site. Took me hours to get the solution, see here

[BitByteNybble11]

Thank you for the quick reply Ollfried.

We do have the MSL6000 table library connected through an HP StorageWorks msa SAN Switch.

I followed the steps on the site you provided but unfortunately this did not resolve the issue.

If I look in my Storage Controller settings I see the following:

     HP Fibre Channel Medium Changer (eui.00900de606951000)

     HP Fibre Channel RAID Ctlr (mpx.vmhba0:C0:T1:L2)

Along with two other LUNs for datastores.

Interestingly enough, the host reports 4 devices but 5 paths.  The one path that shows as dead fc.5001438004c0c069:5001438004c0c068-fc.100000e002035cb8:100000e002235cb8- is LUN 1 on the Fiber Channel card.  The tape drive in the medium changer uses SCSI ID 1.  I wonder if it is detecting a path to the drive but not seeing the device as online.

Again, thank you for your help.

[Ollfried]

But you really loaded tapes into the drives and did a rescan of your HBAs?

[BitByteNybble11]

I executed a move from Slot 1 of the library to Drive 1, it pulled the tape and moved it to the drive.  (The library only has one drive.)  After that I executed a rescan of the HBAs and the drive still did not appear.

Just to be sure, I moved the tape out of the drive, back to the slot, and then back into the drive.  No change unfortunately.

I did make sure that both the library and the drive have their latest firmwares as well.

Thank you.