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amurrellwsu
Contributor
Contributor

vSAN HCL Update Interval?

Over the past 24 hours, I see VMware has certified the Intel P3700 DC NVMe for vSAN 6.6. However, when I do an update to the HCL database, vSAN health says it's up to date with the 4/27/2018 HCL database. Here's a link to the manual database update file that anyone can manually download:

https://partnerweb.vmware.com/service/vsan/all.json

As you can see on the top line, the database was last updated 4/27/2018, which does not include the Intel P3700 DC NVMe certification.

Does anyone know how long VMware goes before they push the HCL database changes so that they're available to vSAN?

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TheBobkin
Champion
Champion

Hello,

Well unfortunately the only archived pages on archive.org for the json pull are from last year.

They didn't include date stamp back then(!) but from the 'build' numbers we can see that it is/was typically updated at least once a month:

http://web.archive.org/web/20160619131752/https://partnerweb.vmware.com/service/vsan/all.json

http://web.archive.org/web/20160519040019/https://partnerweb.vmware.com/service/vsan/all.json

http://web.archive.org/web/20160418133425/https://partnerweb.vmware.com/service/vsan/all.json

(Dates that page was scraped in the URL)

This may seem like a cop-out, but if you know you are using the latest drivers and firmware as per the vSAN HCL, is the Health GUI alert really that much of a bother to you?

If it is and you need an 'all-green' environment then you can disable this health test for the time being via RVC:

# vsan.health.silent_health_check_configure -r <CheckToModify> <PathToCluster>

List of checks:

http://www.virten.net/2017/04/how-to-silence-vsan-health-checks/

Bob

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amurrellwsu
Contributor
Contributor

Awesome super sleuthing! I still want to see an official response from VMware though.

Having everything all green is something I get popped on when I request technical support from the vSAN team. The tech then has to take their time and run through the HCL to make sure I'm not lying about it being certified. I understand it's a psychological thing, but when VMware puts up a front because they don't see the green lights, I have to take this seriously.

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TheBobkin
Champion
Champion

Hello,

"Awesome super sleuthing!" - Thanks! Attaining the status of 'Super-Sleuth' is a much desired accolade for working support in vSAN Team.

HCL/Health-check is a bit of a pain-point (from both Support and Customer side) - it is quite imperative that components are up to scratch and being used for the intended purpose, otherwise unsolvable problems might arise and this can put everyone in a difficult position.

Unfortunately as to how and when (and to what) the HCL certification and push of HCL-DB is applied is not under the dominion of GSS, though I will endeavour to find a bit more information as to this process and relay anything I am permitted to do so.

I don't blame any Engineer second-guessing any environment that is throwing alerts, at the very least they should check as this is one of the reasons the Health-check GUI exists, they are probably not assuming you are "lying" but just need to verify - this is the nature of the job (industry even!), nothing should be taken as fact until observed and proven.

Checking the current set-up directly is a good first step as there can be cases where even if all shows green in the environment perhaps they are using SSDs not certified for All-Flash cache-tier, I don't believe the Health check will not tell you this and implementations such as this can lead to real problems.

Bob

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depping
Leadership
Leadership

I think this was an issue with the web server cache... should be resolved and should be immediate going forward

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TheBobkin
Champion
Champion

Hello,

An update including these Intel devices has been released:

"timestamp":1494489614,"jsonUpdatedTime":"May 10, 2017, 12:09 AM PDT"

...

"model":"Intel SSD DC P3700 Series

Bob

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