RCU Error and ASIS

[bobpowell]

Have been playing with Netapp RCU plugin for VMware and have come across and error creating the clones.

After i deploy a number of clones successfully, i am left with a task on the VI client "Netapp Connection Broker Import" with the status as processing. This has now been like this for over 24Hrs!!!!

Please see attachment

The connection Broker is VM's View4. The connection pool creates OK and all the machines are OK aswell but i get this message stuck in the tasks on VI client.

Is this just a glitch or bug in the software?????

Using ESX3.5 update4 VI client 2.5 update4 with Ontap 7.3.2

After deploying 100 station clones form a 6Gb Gold Image i only ended up utilising 21Gb of space!! Wasn't expecting a space saving of so much!! Is de-dupe really that good or am i missing something?

[forgette]

Unfortunately RCU 2.1 predates the release of View 4.0 (so View 4.0 isn't supported with RCU 2.1).  The good news is that RCU 3.0 is in beta now and is scheduled to be released in late January/early February.  RCU 3.0 fully supports View 4.0.  RCU 3.0 will only support vSphere vCenter 4.0, but you're ESX3.5 will work fine with both.

Yes, the savings you see is the expected result.  RCU uses File Level Flexclone to create the vmdk files for your new Virtual Machines.  These can be thought of as "pre-deduplicated" copies of the original.

Thanks for your post and including a screen shot!

Cheers,

-Eric

[costea]

There is a known bug with RCU 2.1 and VMware View imports: https://now.netapp.com/Knowledgebase/solutionarea.asp?id=kb53664

View 4 support with RCU 2.1 is experimental but there is a workaround for the issue you are seeing.  In case you do not have access to now.netapp.com I've posted the description below:

Symptoms
When running an RCU job that automatically imports the VMs into VMWare View, the task in vCenter never completes. It remains in "In Progress" status. In addition, the RCU service crashes. Despite this, the VMs are actually imported into VMWare View.

VMWare View import process from RCU does not complete successfully.

Cause of this problem
This is a bug in the RCU code that imports the data into VMWare View.

Solution

Workaround:

1. Restart the RCU service with the following commands:

   net stop netappVIPluginService
   net start netappVIPluginService

2. Cancel the task in vCenter using the VI Client.