Missing Array Information in VCenter 6.0 Datasource Script V1.1

[MATTHEWKOOSWN]

Hi There,

I'm running the Version 1.1 of the VCenter 6.0 Datasource script to collect VCenter information into a WFA database for some of our workflows.  Today I noticed that some of the rows in the nas_share table are missing the data in the array column.  I am using the information in this column to automatically determine the cluster mode interface a particular datastore is connected via in order to use that same interface to mount a restored flexclone of that datastore.  My test environment did not have any rows where the array column was blank, however, my production environment is much larger than my test environment.  

When I run the following query:

SELECT DISTINCT data_store_id,array,share_path FROM vc.nas_share where array = '';

It returns, you can see a number of the datastores have a blank array:

data_store_id   array             share_path

11104		/JLGT0OS02
11099		/mk_test_ds
11096		HOSVMVMPDN01_Templates
11094		/TUGT1OS01
11092		/TUGT1OS02
11090		/TUGT0OS01
11086		/TUGT3OS01
11085		JLGT0OS01
11031		/TUGT2OS01
11029		/TUGT0OS02
7202		/WDGT0DZ01SRM
7195		WDBT0DZ05
7190		/WDGT1CG02
7184		/WDGT0DB01
7175		/WDGT1DB01
7173		/WDGT0OS01
7172		/WDPT0DB01
7170		/WDPT1DB01
7169		/WDDT0OS01SRM
7168		/WDGT1OS01
7135		/WDGT0DZ03
7133		/WDGT0DZ01
7132		/WDGT1CG01
7128		/HOGT0UC03

[sinhaa]

Matt,

    This is real strange. I've never come across this in my lab.

Lets debug this. Attached is a script for testing this. 

1. Open a Powershell console on your WFA server

2. Copy the contents of this script into your Powershell ISE editor.

3. Modify the below as per your settings

$VCHost = "1.2.3.4"
$Vcuser = "administrator"
$VCPassword = "mypass123"
$WFA_install = "C:\Program Files\NetApp\WFA\"

4. Execute it.

It will create file ./Nas_Share.csv and C:\temp\vmware.log

kindly send those 2.

You may do some debugging yourself. Look into the wmware.log file and see which datastores have empty NFS_HOST_ARRAY

The VC6.0 script just get the attribute RemoteHost for every NFS datastore. If its '' for some datastores, this is how its been returned by Vcenter. I've never see this being empty for any of my NFS datastores. But strange things happen in software.

In this case I need to see how else can I obtain the RemoteHost property for those datastores who have this property as ''.

I suspect those can be NFS datastores created on from local NAS shares. Is it?

sinhaa

[MATTHEWKOOSWN]

Hi Sinhaa,

The NFS exports are all done the same way via cluster mode NFS exports that are mounted by our ESX clusters.  It's very strange, I cannot really see a pattern as to why these are not collecting the array information whereas the datasource script did correctly log the array information on the majority of our datastores.

One thing I did notice is that the datastores missing array information tend to be mostly from our smaller ESX clusters with only 2 hosts.  There are 3 sets of 2 host ESX clusters where the array information is missing on all of their NFS datastores.  However, there are also a handful of datastores on the list (roughly 1/3) that are in our largest production cluster with 20 hosts.

The other difference to note between test and prod is that in test we only have 1 vcenter server, however, in prod we have 2 vcenter servers.  Our prod WFA server collects from all 3 VCenter servers whereas our test WFA only collects from test.

I'll run through the debug steps you listed and post the results.

Thanks,

Matt.

[sinhaa]

Matt,

     I'll have the remaining part of the discussion via email. The final conclusion will be posted here for everyone to view.

sinhaa

[sinhaa · Accepted solution]

@MATTHEWKOOSWN

Hello All,

The root cause of this problem is a bug in VMware vSphere PowerCLI 6.0 (Release 3 build 3205540). I would assume VMWare will fix this in their future release. 

Till then, I'm attaching a  WFA VMWare vCenter 6.0 Acquistion script version 1.3.0 which handles this problem and gets the result for you.

Please find the attached VMware vCenter 6.0 Data Source Type dar file. This cane be imported in WFA3.1P1 and above. ( BTW there is a WFA3.1P2 available with many bug fixes )

The Pack in WFA Autmation Store will be available in some time.

For any issues, please post them on WFA Community.

sinhaa