When SCSI Tape Drive is switched off, Virtual Machine refuses to power on - workaround needed !

[VMGlugger]

I have Servers with SCSI tape drives attached running ESXi and a single Server 2003 VM

All is well until we have a power outage when the Server reboots itself but the external SCSI tape drive does not come automatically.

When this happens the VM fails to boot with the event 'Unable to open SCSI device '/vmfs/devices/genscsi/vml.0201000000500e09e0001b95cf554c54524955' (scsi0:2): Could not find the file

basically I want the VM boot process to ignore this error and carry on....Any deas ?

Thanks

[VMmatty]

I'm not sure if there is a way to get the VM to ignore the error and continue booting. I have the same configuration on an ESXi host and I can't say I remember the VM failing to boot if the tape library is powered off, but I could be wrong.

If you're willing to spend a little money, one nice workaround is to use an SCSI to iSCSI bridge for the tape library. These tools let you present your SCSI tape drive to the VM as an iSCSI device, which would remove the need to tie a VM to a physical server with the drive attached. I've used these before and found them to be pretty helpful in these types of scenarios.

http://www.attotech.com/products/category.php?id=2&catid=5

[VMGlugger]

Thanks for the reply. You are perfectly correct & I had considered this option before. My problem is cost. I have 20+ servers at 20+ different locations which = a lot of money...hence my search for an alternative coded solution ?

[VMmatty]

Is the issue that after a power failure the tape drive doesn't come back online automatically, or that it takes a while? You could try setting a startup delay in the VM of, say, 5 minutes to give the tape drive time to power up completely.

[VMGlugger]

The issue is that the tape drive does not power up automatically following a power down and cannot be set to do so (I asked the manufacturers).

Short of some sort of Heath Robinson device involving a solenoid, a rotor and a rubber finger I don't know what to do !!