VSC 7.0 not working in VCSA 6.5

[AndreasN]

Hi,

because I had problems with VSC Windows Installation discovering the Storage on my VCSA 6.5, I downloaded and installed VSC 7.0 (virtual appliance) yesterday.

Installation worked pretty well, but if I click on the Virtual Storage Console Icon in VCenter Web Client, VSC hangs with message "Loading Storage System Details" - without no other error/warning message.

I read that VSC 7.0 does not support linked mode, the system will then also be stuck at the same loading message, but along with an error message that states that linked configuration is not supported.

I have no linked mode configured, but I do use VCenter HA. Could that be the problem or do you have another idea?

Restarting VCenter and/or VSC did not solve the problem.

VSC 7.0

VCSA 6.5.0.5600 

ONTAP 9.1P5

Regards

Andreas

[ssaravan]

Hi Andreas,

Since you are saying that installation went through, I assume that all configuration requirement for running VSC 7.0 are met. 

Please do confirm that installation was successful without any warnings. 

Also check if VSC 7.0 VM is not starved for any required CPU or Memory. 

VSC in HA configuration is un tested. Just to rule out, is it possible for you to install VSC 7.0 on non HA vCenter and check if that helps?

Regards,

Saravana

[Roopeshwari]

Hi Andreas,

Having vCenter HA enabled, does not cause any issues for VSC 7.0

Perhaps there are some unregistration issues. Unregister VSC 7.0 from vCenter using Register.html link. Follow steps mentioned in "Unregistering VSC from Windows setup" of 'Virtual Storage Console, VASA Provider, and Storage Replication Adapter for VMware vSphere Deployment and Setup Guide for 7.0 release'.

Re-register VSC 7.0 to vCenter using Register.html, logout of vCenter and login again.

Thanks,

Roopeshwari U

[AndreasN]

It was a network configuration issue.

My VCenter has 2 NICs, 1x Server VLAN, 1x Management VLAN.

I configured VSC for Management VLAN - installation went through but somehow it did not properly connect. Changed it to Server VLAN and now everything shows up in vcenter.

Nevertheless I now have the problem, that I have added my FAS2650 by using the Cluster Management LIF IP.

Interfaces are shown but no SVMs or Datastores. I have added the Users/Roles with Netapp RBAC User Creator on the Cluster and Datastore SVM.

I have also tried to add the SVM itself, and not the cluster, that works but VSC says that some permissions are missing:

Missing all access commands: 
job,volume efficiency off,volume efficiency on,volume efficiency show,volume efficiency start,volume efficiency stat,volume efficiency stop,vserver iscsi interface accesslist add
Missing read only access commands: 
vserver fcp initiator show,vserver fcp interface show,vserver fcp show,vserver iscsi connection show,vserver iscsi interface show,vserver iscsi session show,vserver iscsi show

I have double checked the permissions, I tried to assign the role created by RBAC-Creator and also assigned vsadmin role to my VSC-User. Sometimes I see volume creation and destroy-permissions, but Discovery never shows up.

I had the same issue that SVMs were not discovered with Version 6.2 (Windows), but it was fixed with 6.2.1P1D2.

[ssaravan]

Do you have the BURT no. for the issue reported here, which was addressed in 6.2.1P1D2?

[AndreasN]

I couldn't find the exact bug in the release notes, but I've had the same problem and solution like in this thread: https://community.netapp.com/t5/VMware-Solutions-Discussions/VSC-6-2-1-P1-Incomplete-Netapp-Storage-System-detection/td-p/128535

It seems it reappeared in 7.0.

[AndreasN]

Found it in the thread, was fixed in 6.2.1P1D1:

Burt 1069251 "Multiple failure: Provision datastore, Host discovery, Backup datastore".

[ssaravan]

Burt 1069251 "Multiple failure: Provision datastore, Host discovery, Backup datastore"

Fix for above BURT most probably is not available in 7.0. Will confirm sooner.

But, please confirm that have you verified that indeed the symptoms and errors reported in logs is same as the one mentioned in BURT?

[AndreasN]

Confirmed:

VSC-Log when trying to discover:

2017-08-10 02:58:41,418 [HostESXHOST1] ERROR (Viapi) - RemoteException: Unable to get information for ESXHOST1
java.rmi.RemoteException: Exception in WSClient.invoke:; nested exception is: 
	java.lang.NullPointerException
	at com.vmware.vim25.ws.XmlGenDom.fromXML(XmlGenDom.java:118)
	at com.vmware.vim25.ws.WSClient.invoke(WSClient.java:93)
	at com.vmware.vim25.ws.VimStub.retrieveProperties(VimStub.java:73)
	at com.vmware.vim25.mo.PropertyCollector.retrieveProperties(PropertyCollector.java:107)
	at com.vmware.vim25.mo.util.PropertyCollectorUtil.retrieveProperties(PropertyCollectorUtil.java:89)
	at com.vmware.vim25.mo.ManagedObject.getPropertiesByPaths(ManagedObject.java:211)
	at com.netapp.vscv.server.Viapi.getHostProperties(Viapi.java:2235)
	at com.netapp.vscv.server.HostDiscoverer.call(HostDiscoverer.java:125)
	at com.netapp.vscv.server.HostDiscoverer.call(HostDiscoverer.java:36)
	at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266)
	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
	at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748)
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
2017-08-10 02:58:41,418 [HostESXHOST1] ERROR (HostDiscoverer) - [] Discovery completed with error: null
java.lang.NullPointerException
	at com.netapp.vscv.server.HostDiscoverer.call(HostDiscoverer.java:127)
	at com.netapp.vscv.server.HostDiscoverer.call(HostDiscoverer.java:36)
	at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266)
	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
	at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748)

Symptoms are exatly as stated in the other thread.

My ESX Hosts also Use lsi_mr3:

[root@ESXHOST1:~] esxcfg-scsidevs -a | grep vmhba0
vmhba0 lsi_mr3 link-n/a sas.51866da09fb9b000 (0000:02:00.0) Avago (LSI) Dell PERC H730P Mini

[Stiegelis]

We are seeing the exact same issue. VCS 6.2.1 fails to detect SVM and storage, only lifs. Host settings can't be apllied correctly and HBA settings give java null errors.

Update to VCS 6.2.1 P1D2 solves the problems, even host setting in VSC 6.2.1 P1D2 are reported normal and all settings in green.

After upgrading to VSC 7 or a new instance of VSC 7 will give the same problems as VSC 6.2.1

It looks like the work around / bug fixes in VSC 6.2.1 P1D2 are NOT implemented in VSC 7

[AndreasN]

Just for your info, upgrading the lsi_mr3 driver (6.910.18.00-1vmw.650.0.0.4564106 to 7.700.50.00-1OEM.650.0.0.4598673) did NOT solve the problem.

[ssaravan]

I confirm that fix is not available in VSC 7.0 as this issue got fixed after VSC 7.0 development completed.

Request to raise a support case to pull and provide a patch for VSC 7.0 as well.

[ConstantinosC]

Hello,

I have installed VSC 7 about 2 weeks ago on VCSA 6 without any issues.

After upgrading to VCSA 6.5U1 i'm facing the same issue.

[AndreasN]

fyi: I opened a support case and had a webex session with netapp support last week. The issue was now escalated. We'll see 🙂

[Stiegelis]

VSC 7 was not working on VCSA 6.5 U1. I did an inplace upgrade from VSC 6.2.1P1D2

The plugin in VCSA showed version 7. After exactly 1 week VCSA was showing VSC 6.2.1P1D2

I did not uninstall the 7 plugin or a downgrade. it simply switched to 6.2.1P1D2 and eveything was showing ok.

The VM instance of VSC 7 was not showing any error. Very weard.

For the time being all versions and plugins have been removed, vasa provider removed and we'll wait for an update.

[Roopeshwari]

Hi Stiegelis,

In place upgrade is not supported for VSC 6.2.x to VSC 7.0. You have to perform migration which involves uninstalling existing VSC 6.2.x and installing VSC 7.0.

Please refer and perform steps mentioned in  'Migrating existing VSC installation to the 7.0 version of the virtual appliance for VSC, VASA Provider, and SRA' section of Deployment and Setup Guide.

https://library.netapp.com/ecm/ecm_download_file/ECMLP2770249

Thanks,

Roopeshwari U