VC 2.5 svmotion Plugin showing negative free space / alternative plugin

[GreyhoundHH]

Hi,

I'm experiencing a problem the svmotion-plugin from Andrew Kutz. My environment is vCenter 2.5u5 and several ESX 3.5u5.

When I want to migrate the storage of a VM that resides on two different LUNs, the free space of one or all affected LUNs is not reported correctly. It is shown as a negative value, not letting me to migrate anything onto it.

I've found some similiar experiences described in different communities, but never read any solution or workaround. Is there really no way to deal with this issue?

Is there maybe another / better plugin for this feature? I've not come across any other yet...

Any help appreciated.

[Troy_Clavell]

you may try restarting your vCenter Server Service. However, the 3rd party plugin isn't officially supported. Have you tried using the RCLI method with the same results?

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35u2/vi3_35_25_u2_rcli.pdf

[GreyhoundHH]

I've already restarted the service and the whole system, no difference.

I haven't used the RCLI since the svmotion plugin was released, but I can give it a try again.

What I intend to do is moving the virtual machine and it'S first disk to the second LUN where the other disk of the VM is located. I've done this before with the svmotion-plugin and it worked perfectly. Can this also be done with the RCLI?

[Troy_Clavell]

What I intend to do is moving the virtual machine and it'S first disk to the second LUN where the other disk of the VM is located. I've done this before with the svmotion-plugin and it worked perfectly. Can this also be done with the RCLI?

yes. Or worse case scenario you can do a cold migration. You may also try installing the plugin on another client and see if you get the same results.

Also, the if you are changing ESX Hosts, you may try restarting the managment agents on the destination host, if not already done

>service vmware-vpxa restart

>service mgmt-vmware restart

[GreyhoundHH]

I've tried both: Installing the svmotion plugin on another machine and restarting the management-services on the affected ESX. Unfortunately none of that made any difference.

So I gave the RCLI another try and it worked perfectly.

Too bad, VMware hasn't released an official plugin / GUI for this nice feature. Can anybody tell me, if this is implemented in vCenter 4.x?

Thanks

[AndreTheGiant]

if this is implemented in vCenter 4.x?

Yes.

The migrate function now can also do a SVMotion.

And during a storage migration you can also convert the vmdk format (thin - thick).

I've not tested on ESX 3.x hosts, but probably it works only on them.

Andre