vsim cDOT 8.3.2 delay between login prompt and full working system

[dkorns]

Environment:

  - vsim 8.3.2

  - on ESXi 6

  - w/4GB mem, 2-cores

  - single-node cluster

When booting up I usually watch ONTAP's console and wait for the point where the login prompt is issued to see that it's up and running. Recently I've noticed the ' whole cluster DB process' takes awhile longer to come. In particular I notice the cluster_mgmt interface doesn't respond. So I log into the node_mgmt interface and type 'net int show' and see only the node_mgmt LIF and some other commands don't work. CPU usage is high during this phase but after N minutes all the interfaces, vservers, etc become available. 

I'm wondering if other see this delay and if so, how long it is? I just saw one that took 30 minutes to come fully up. 

[yannb]

Yes, it is normal.

The prompt is available way before the cluster ring is synchronized and all the interfaces up on all the nodes.

[dkorns]

Thanks for the feedback. I figured some delay was normal, but 30 minutes for a single-node cluster really makes me wonder if I've got something mis-configured. 

I rarely reboot these things (usually suspend) but I'm going to try and start keeping better records of reboot->cluster-up times.

PS: I use and see this on both macOS Fusion and ESX6. I routinely drop the VM size from 5gb or 8gb (on ESX) down to 3gb or 4gb (on ESX) and wonder if this is a price I'm paying for doing that.

[yannb]

30mn looks like a a stretch yes, but regarding memory, I wouldn't be surprised indeed, it's worth doing some tests with the original VM size.

[SeanHatfield]

I do remember seeing this many times, but I haven't hit it lately.  On first boot, the cluster gets through create and come up pretty quickly.  Then on subsequent boots after its been configured you get to the cluster shell a _long_ time before the cluster rings all come up.  I was just doing 'cluster ring show' until the DBs are online.  Theres another delay I used to hit during boot where it would hang with 1 second on the countdown for 5-10 minutes, but that seems to be fixed in newer loaders.