Since enabling vCenter 5.5 "Link Mode", VSC Provisioning & Cloning is now Timing Out

[SCOTTS2012]

I have been using Rapid Cloning & Provisioning for a few years now successfully via the vCenter VSC Plugin 4.2.1. Recently we joined two vCenters using the "Link Mode" Setup Wizard, for ease of administration of the two vCenters.

However since linking the vCenters rapid cloning is no longer possible, as the wizard times out when selecting the controller stating "Could not validate the selected storage controller. It failed with the following error: "Timeout error". If you changed the SSL settings or password you must remove and re-add the storage controller to continue."

I don't know what enabling "Link mode" changed, but this was all working fine before we joined the two vcenters.

The kamino.log shows the timeout, but does not give a lot of details: -

2016-02-04 09:35:43,879 (qtp1523392510-28) DEBUG [ServerServiceImpl] - timeout exception
java.util.concurrent.TimeoutException
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerGet(Unknown Source)
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.get(Unknown Source)
at com.netapp.kamino.server.ServerServiceImpl.refreshController(ServerServiceImpl.java:435)
at com.netapp.kamino.server.ServerServiceImpl.refreshController(ServerServiceImpl.java:352)
at com.netapp.kamino.server.ServerServiceImpl.getDedupeModel(ServerServiceImpl.java:937)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)

Google does not provide a lot of information on this problem, hence the creation of this post

 Hopefully someone in the community could advise what may be causing this error / timeout and how to correct it.

Thank you,

[asulliva · Accepted solution]

Hello @SCOTTS2012,

Are you still using VSC 4.2.x?  Multi-vCenter is not supported until VSC 6.0.

Andrew

[SCOTTS2012]

Thanks for the reply. Out of interest is VSC 6.0 compatible with vCenter 5.5 and also our version of OntAP, which is 8.1.4 P8 7-Mode?

I was wondering if we could upgrade the VSC instead of reversing link mode on the vCenters. Also we regularily schedule redeploys of our terminal servers (once a week) We do this using powershell scripts and the connecting to vsc module (see previous posting http://community.netapp.com/t5/VMware-Solutions-Discussions/Automated-Re-Deploy-of-VMs-using-VSC-cmdlets-Powershell-Script/m-p/76201#M7318).

We cannot lose this functionality and would need to know whether these scripts would still work in VSC 6.

Any help or advise on this matter would be very much appreciated.

Thank you.

[SCOTTS2012]

In a bid to get back rapid cloning functionality I have reverted the vCenters back to isololation mode, however the VSC plugin still persists in timing out. On one of the vCenters we are not using Rapid cloning in production, therefore I tried uninstalling VSC 4.2.1, re-installing and re-registering it with vCenter. Still the timeout persists. I don't know what else to try or where else to look to try and resolve this. This feature is important and we need to get it back working. Can anyone adivse.

Thank you.

[asulliva]

To answer your first question (which I missed originally, sorry!), yes VSC 6.0 and 6.1 work with 8.1.4 7-mode and vCenter 5.5.  As far as your PowerShell scripts, you will most likely have to refactor them (VSC 6.0+ ships with cmdlets), but the functionality is still there.

For the second issue, have you opened a support case?  I would suggest that as a first step if you haven't already done so.

Andrew