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jbWiseMo
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"SP failover is not supported. Only SP port failover is supported", what does that mean

In the VMware ESXi 4.x compatibility list, or Promise VessRAID iSCSI SAN has a footnote: "SP failover is not supported. Only SP port failover is supported"  SP obviously means Storage Path", however I am unsure what is meant by this footnote, since all I can find when searching VMware documents for "port failover" is a reference to HBAs that hide the failover from the VMware kernel, which doesn't sound like a property of the iSCSI SAN target or its VMware initiator side settings.

So what does this footnote mean, which VMware settings cannot be used and which ones can.  Promise support is mostly unhelpful, so asking them is unlikely to get a straight answer.

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Rubeck
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Maybe the Promise VessRAID iSCSI SAN only has a single storage controller/storage processor (SP) with multiple ports?

When looking at their website it looks like the Vess series are single controller only.... So obviously it won't be able to fail over to another storage processor if the primary fails.. 

/Rubeck

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john23
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Can you provide the link.

Thanks -A Read my blogs: www.openwriteup.com
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Rubeck
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Maybe the Promise VessRAID iSCSI SAN only has a single storage controller/storage processor (SP) with multiple ports?

When looking at their website it looks like the Vess series are single controller only.... So obviously it won't be able to fail over to another storage processor if the primary fails.. 

/Rubeck

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jbWiseMo
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Are you saying that SP is "storage processor", not "storage path" ?, if so, that would be a really bad choice of abbreviation in that context.

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Rubeck
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Im saying that it is storage processor or service processor in this case..  and only one exists in the 1730i

24-01-2014 15-28-48.png

/Rubeck

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john23
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Have you checked with storage vendor...any internal bug reported by them. Mostly its looks some known issue...can check with VMware support as well.

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Thanks -A Read my blogs: www.openwriteup.com
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jbWiseMo
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Yes, I know that the 1730i has only one controller/CPU (as the vendor calls it).  The problem is interpreting that footnote in the VMWare compatibility list as referring to that trivial fact and not to some limitation in how storage path failover can be done between VMkernel and the 1730i.

I have now compared the compatibility list entry with the one for the dual controller variant of essentially the same hardware (1830i) and it omits the footnote while also stating that the 1830i is somehow ESXi 5.1 compatible but the 1730i is not.

So I guess you are right and someone chose a really bad way to state that "this model has no redundant storage processor".  In a context that might talk about Storage Path failover or more rarely Storage Processor failover, abbreviating the rarest phrase to "SP" is just not readable.

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