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RParker
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RDM Fiber / WWN Cluster / VCB

So I setup a physical RDM VM. I gave it a virtual WWN. I installed Windows 2003 R2 SP2. Now what?

I don't see ANY drives other than the local drive, I don't see ANY fiber connectivity, datastores from the ESX hosts (it's on a ESX host with Fiber connectivity and access to the datastores).

I added the virtual ports for the VM to the zone, it should have full visibility, everything works EXCEPT this NEW VM I just created.

What I am trying to do is install vRanger (to get better performance for fiber backups) instead of doing LAN backups, to see if it would be better. So isn't this the same as taking a physical box and installing Fiber cards? If its not, what is the purpose of having virtual WWN / Fiber if you can't do anything with them?

So if anyone has set this up, let me know, because everything works fine from Cluster standpoint, ESX hosts, Fiber, datastores, it's all good, but this VM isn't working. Can someone please give some guidance?

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EnsignA
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You will be pleased when you get it running, and you are welcome.

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EnsignA
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I use vRanger and am currently doing SAN backup's instead of LAN backups. First, I have never used the feature that you speak of, as I admittedly do not know what it's function is either.

That said, here is how we setup to do VCB backups:

1. Dedicated physical Windows 2003R2 SP2 server. Has enough disk space on it to hold our backups. It is attached to the SAN and is in the same "zones" as the ESX servers. It can have only one path to the SAN to do VCB backup's, as PowerPath or any software like that is not supported in vRanger. You could use PowerPath and such if you did LAN backups. When you attach your Windows server, you will see all of the VMFS LUN's, they will showup as unknown. You will also see LUNS's that are marked as unavailable and are RED. These must be disabled by going to the properties of the disk and choosing to disable device.

2. We are using the latest version of vRanger(3.2.4) and the VCB plug-in(2.0.3), however, we are not yet using the latest version of the VCB Framework from VMware yet...we still use 1.1. We do have a mix of 3.5 U1 and 3.5 U2 and are using VC U2.

3. When you install vRanger, install in this order, vRanger, VCB plugin, the VCB framework. If you need to upgrade, do so in reverse.

4. vRanger will do the VCB backup's of VM's w/RDM's if the RDM's are in virtual mode. If they are in physical mode they will not backup via VCB.

This setup has worked very well for us. You can only run two VCB backup's at a time, however, they are so much faster than LAN backups that they make up the time.

RParker
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1. Dedicated physical Windows 2003R2 SP2 server. Has enough disk space on it to hold our backups.

This I know. We already have Vizion vRanger installed, just like you same version, VCB is 1.5, ESX 3.5 U2. Everything is good. I didn't want to dedicate a HBA card on a backup box just to do Fiber backups just so they would be faster, I figured creating a VM with virtual fiber ports would cure, this, apparently there is a flaw in my logic. I do appreciate the explanation. I guess this feature isn't in use by anyone, but what's weird is a physical RDM it sees no more available drives, HBA, drivers or anything. So I thought maybe there was a driver I needed or something. Nothing else is more visible now than with a standard VM on a VMFS datastore, so I figured I must have missed a step.

4. vRanger will do the VCB backup's of VM's w/RDM's if the RDM's are in virtual mode. If they are in physical mode they will not backup via VCB

Yes this we do now, the only VM that's physical is the VCB VM I created (because it doesn't need to be backed up) because I wanted to explore the SAN manager (that's not working either), so this is definately a learning experience, and I may have to resort to calling VM Ware for support. I did try searching the net, but it seems no one is doing this today, or at least no documentation has been submitted about it.

This setup has worked very well for us. You can only run two VCB backup's at a time, however, they are so much faster than LAN backups that they make up the time.

Yes, and that's what I was after, faster backups. They don't take extraordinarily long now, just VM World tech counter said this is the method we should be using.. so I thought I would go the VM route to see if I could leverage existing technology.

Thanks for the help.

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EnsignA
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You will be pleased when you get it running, and you are welcome.

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BUGCHK
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> I don't see ANY fiber connectivity

Sounds like you started playing with NPIV?

Well, no change for the VM. It will not get a Fibre Channel HBA by some magic.

If NPIV works, its WWPNs will be passed through the Fabric and visible on the storage array, but from what I can tell, the VM does not get access to fabric services.

If NPIV does not work, it is a plain RDM connection.

Disappointed? Welcome to the club !

depping
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Are you sure your FC switches and SAN support NPIV?



Duncan

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If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

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RParker
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> if NPIV works, its WWPNs will be passed through the Fabric and visible

on the storage array, but from what I can tell, the VM does not get

access to fabric services.

Well after all of this, I did finally find some info on this. This appears to be a way to monitor disk performance from the SAN directly to a VM. Not what I wanted. I didn't think it would appear by magic, but I thought a virtual HBA would be the same as a virtual NIC, and I would get fiber pass through, this isn't the case. So I am not going to pursue it.

This seems like a rather worthless feature, considering the SAN and ESX host can monitor performance of VM's, so why the RDM? Apparently I am not the only one, because no one seems to be using this feature either.

> Disappointed? Welcome to the club !

Where do I sign up for the club? Smiley Happy

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RParker
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> Are you sure your FC switches and SAN support NPIV?

SAN yes, Switches No. It's not a big deal anymore. Not what I had in mind. But thanks for the help just the same. It doesn't indicate anything from a VM stand point, so no way to test it and no way to get feedback from the host. Even if it doesn't support (the fiber switch) there should be some indication inside the VM on whether this feature is working or not. There is ZERO feedback.

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BUGCHK
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> There is ZERO feedback.

No, because the OS in the VM still talks to an emulated Buslogic/LSIlogic parallel-SCSI adapter.

To find out whether NPIV really works, you have to browse some logfiles. You understand that I am too lazy to find out their names right now? Thanks Smiley Wink

It's OK if this were clearly positioned as a, well, "Experimental Feature" to find out some uses, but the current message (from several companies) sounds like "NPIV will save the world!" Smiley Wink

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