New LUN's not visible

[espi3030]

Greetings all,

Some of you might recognize my name and this topic. I have made some drastic changes, but I still have the same problem. Here is my setup:

(1) datacenter - LOSANGELES

(2) clusters - ANAHEIM and BELL

(2) ESX hosts each - ANAHEIM - DISNEY and KNOTTS

BELL - UNIVERSAL and PINKS

Each cluster has its own 500gb LUN not visible by the other cluster, and both clusters have a shared BACKUP 500gb LUN. Each host has a dual port Qlogic (QLA231x/2340) HBA that can see its presented LUN's. Here is the problem, I was under the impression that when the HBA's can see the LUN's I should see them under Storage (SCSI, SAN, and NFS) automatically, yet I cannot.

Here is what I have done, ESX 3.0.2 (52542) has been installed from scratch, some hosts have vm's currently running on local storage. The LUN's presented are all newly created, I have removed host from cluster, VC, I have rebooted several times, I have rescanned several times with and without the LVM.EnableResignature option. I have performed the esxcfg-mpath/esxcfg-vmhbadevs, and service vmware-vpxa restart commands.

I am not a SAN guy, but I am assured by them that this has been setup identically to a different datacenter that is working correctly. I am very close to my wits end, I will be more than glad to post any output(s) than ya'll might think can help. Thank you.

" If at first you don't succeed... Bang your head harder!"

[Chris_S_UK · Accepted solution]

I may be being stupid or missing something but you won't see them under "Storage (SCSI, SAN and NFS)" until you have created a VMFS partition on the LUN.

Until you do, you will only see them under the "Storage Adaptors" screen....

Chris

[espi3030]

No, not at all. Thank you, I have been messing with this for soo long I don't wan to miss the small details. I did forget to ask that in my initial post, I got side tracked trying to list everything I have done. I was supposed to ask, "Do I add it with the Add Storage link?"

Ok, so I do have to click "Add Storage" then under storage type "DISK/LUN" and select the LUN. When I do this, will it be visible to the other ESX hosts in this cluster? I want to say that I tried this (before all the rebuilding) and was unsuccessfull at seing the shared storage from other hosts.

Thank you

[Chris_S_UK]

Yes, add the Storage (i.e. vmfs partition) from one host and, as long as the zoning is done correctly, the other hosts should see the same datastore. You might have to do a rescan on the other hosts, though, if you want it to appear quickly.

Chris

[espi3030]

Chris,

Thank you! Like I said, I wasn't sure if I had done that before. My first setup was with 150gb LUNs and I added several of them as extents (which I know not to ever do again!) and things got really hosed quick, lessons learned though. I did like you said, and no surprise to you (it was to me) the shared LUN's showed up just like they are supposed to! Points awarded!