FC with DSS 1.32 + Vmware ESX 3.0.2

[paul2kl]

Hi,

Has anybody managed to get Qlogic FC cards to work properly with DSS Server and ESX 3.0.2.

I can get ISCSI to work fine, without issues. But when connecting an FC Lun to ESX i eventually get Timeout's and both ESX server and DSS server need to be rebooted.

I am informed by support that people have this working, so it would be great to hear from someone who has got it working properly either using direct attached Fibre or through a switch.

I have QLA 2340's or QLA2310's and both see the same issues.

Support mentioned that it maybe the Vmware driver's being at fault. But i have proved that not to be the case as Sanmelody works perfectly well on the same hardware (no time outs no problems).

Any help would be good, on how you got it going

[tjk]

Hello Paul,

We are seeing the same sort of issues on ESX 3.0.2, Dell host nodes with qlogic 2GB FC cards, connected to Qlogic FC switches.

Our issue is that the DSS server will not go into target mode no matter what and the ESX nodes cannot see any of the LUNS we create.

I've set the qlogic switch ports to the various configs to see if that helped, and it did not. The qlogic see's the DSS ports in initiator mode - even though the DSS is obviously set to target mode.

1.32 latest beta and all prior releases, same issue. I'm not sure if it is unique to out setup or not, but the same hosts, cards, and switches are working fine talking to some storevaults and a windows software based SAN.

** Literally the same setup ** I am just adding the DSS into the switch and creating LUNS and trying to present them to the host nodes - node luck.

Todd has been great in helping me trying to figure this out, so far as jumping on a webex session and looking things over - no luck yet.

I'm sure we'll get it, I just hope soon, as I have to keep deploying storevaults, it isn't all that bad! :D

Tom

[Raudi]

I got here some problems that kind too:

2x ESX 3.5 with QLE2460
DSS 1.37 Build 2922 in 64Bit with QLA2462

iSCSI works normal but with FC i didn't get this work.

Yesterday i created a few small LUN's. I made a VMFS with a single VMDK and made a RDMP to test the performance. This looks good...

But now i created a 500GB LUN formatted this with VMFS and copyed the VMDK's from my local Datastore back to the DSS.

When i do nothing the copy works. But when i browse the Datastore during copy, the copy process interrupts and the FC connection is lost. A rescan for devices didn't find the DSS, a reboot of the VMware host didn't find the DSS, only after a reboot the DSS will be found from the ESX.

One time the DSS freezes completely (cursor on the console doesn't blink), the only way to reboot was to made a reset. This time the VMFS seems to be corrupted, because the incomplete VMDK i can't delete because VMware says that the file doesn't exist.

Next time after a interrupt i rebooted all and when i tryed to delete the incomplete file the ESX lost the connection to the DSS again. This time only on one channel of the QLA2462, the other ESX Host had still access to the DSS.

Who has this got running and can give me some hints?

Best regards
Stefan

[Raudi]

Now i used the Build 2956 in 32bit and all works file...

The primary problem was the error message i got, that the Int 16 was disabled with the Build 2922. This problem was fixed in Build 2956.

But in 2956 Fibre Channel doesn't work in 64bit. :(

Best regards
Stefan

[broeken]

i had all these same problems with esx 3.5 and a dds system with qlogic cards.

I switced over to a ibm ds4800 san storage, this oc works perfectly for us.

I like to see that the fiber connections stay up in the dds. this would be perfect for us as a backup system.

[Raudi]

I got a Promise VTrak E610fS and used it with all S-ATA disks which i used in the DSS before.

Works great with VMware...