Mount NetApp Volume Snapshot as a new datastore in vSphere

[BillClark22]

Running NetApp Release 9.6P3 and VMWare ESXi 6.5.  I have 3 separate datastores on the NetApp that are presented to the 4 ESXi hosts and all is well.  I'm trying to test the process of mounting one of the volume snapshots that NetApp takes throughout the day and mount it as a new LUN in vSphere so I can interact with the virtual machines on that restored LUN.  Using the following method, I can get the snapshot mounted and active within the ONTAP System Manager, but in refreshing and scanning new storage on the vSphere side, it never shows up so I'm missing something.  In ONTAP, I goto Storage\Volumes and select my Volume.  More Actions\Clone\Create\Volume and I give the volume a new name and select an existing Snapshot.  After that I goto Storage\LUNs and edit the new volume and enable the only Initiator Group listed which is the same as the production LUNs.  After that, I'm not sure what to do as I can never see it in vSphere.  Where am I going wrong?

[maffo]

Have you confirmed the LUNs (original/clone) have different ID? If they are both presented to the host with the same ID it might cause confusion and some might not show up.

[BillClark22]

Yes.  I manually changed the name of the LUN to make sure there was no confusion and let the process assign the LUN ID.  Once done, I verified that the LUN ID was unique.

[optimus · Accepted solution]

Are you still having a problem with this? You never mentioned adding the datastore in vSphere so maybe you need to do that. It doesn't appear automatically.

Right-click the datacenter/cluster/host that you want to add it to > Storage > New Datastore. At the "Name and device selection" step you select the mounted LUN.