VSC support for vSphere 6.7U3

[VirtualJoe]

When will VSC support vSphere 6.7U3?

[Fabian1993]

I use the 9.6 with 6.7U3 - It is working..

[VirtualJoe]

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@Fabian1993 wrote:

I use the 9.6 with 6.7U3 - It is working..

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Me too in lab environment. It does work but there is also a lot of weird behaviour...

[Oli71]

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@VirtualJoe wrote:

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@Fabian1993 wrote:

I use the 9.6 with 6.7U3 - It is working..

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Me too in lab environment. It does work but there is also a lot of weird behaviour...

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@VirtualJoe , oh okay I found some weird behaviour but also in a lab. I didn't get the create volume since I test a single cluster node vsim but expanding VVOL fails for me, or create a VM fails also but it accepts if prior done on a normal datastore.

Cloning doesn't work on a VVOL with all thin, a message is it doesn't have space but works if you do your operation outside the VVOL, then svmotion back the machine.

[Blissitt]

Caveats:

I'm using ONTAP Select 9.6 instead of the simulator.

I've upgraded it to 9.6P2 using a regular FAS firmware update.  I had hoped the problem solved in 9.6P1 was similar to the problem I was having: https://community.netapp.com/t5/VMware-Solutions-Discussions/vVol-creation-error-for-vSphere-HA-protected-folder/td-p/147005

I have two networks, one for storage and one for production traffic and VCSA and ESXi hosts are multi-homed with a virtual NIC on each network and DNS set up to point to the correct NIC in each environment and some static routes set up on the VCSA/ESXi.

I can create NFS or iSCSI-based vVols all day long and I can create VMs on them, but enabling HA is a hard fail for me as I mentioned above.

If HA is enabled I get errors on the vSphere cluster object in the Web Client.

I've seen NFS vVols created with Default Export Policy and they've not been fully accessible.

I've gotten "No host is compatible with the virtual machine" errors with NetApp vVols.

I've gotten "Cannot complete the configuration of the vsphere ha agent on the host" with NetApp vVols.

Removing the free EMC Unity VSA from vSphere helped with some other errors, but not the above errors.

I've tried getting NetApp's VASA to work in various and sundry scenarios (versions 6.x, 7.x, and 9.x; various versions of NetApp Simulator and ONTAP Select 9.6) and no dice.  I imagine there's a silver bullet/cookbook somewhere, or my test environment is bad, but after 30+ hours of playing with NetApp's VASA implementation, I've never gotten it working 100%.  I can't tell that vVols are a big priority for NetApp, at least on this platform.  Maybe I can get it to work with our E5700 appliances.

[Oli71]

@Blissitt , let me try to understand you. Do you use DNS resolution on 2 different networks (and 2 different DNS target address?) I had sometimes bad result while using NFS combined DNS resolution. You should maybe try to use custom IP stack on your ESXi (https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.7/com.vmware.vsphere.networking.doc/GUID-660423B1-3D35-4F85-ADE5-FE1D6BF015CF.html)

HA relies on a DS heartbeat since we don't have DS with VVols, you might have to force it on a traditional DS.

Oli

[Blissitt]

Unfortunately, I currently have to place some of VMs on a private network (including the VSC/VASA VM itself), hence my test VCSA and ESXi hosts being multi-homed, with each having one production address and one private address.  I think I have DNS set up correctly for the environment, but won't swear to it - hence the caveats section above.  🙂  I will soon be getting a much nicer test environment with all addresses on one network and that may help things, so I probably won't troubleshoot DNS or TCP/IP too much at this time.  I have experimented with the kaminoprefs file even though it wasn't necessary, and it didn't help.

I'm curious about what you said.  When I enabled HA, I chose the "Use datastores only from the specified list" and specifically omitted any iSCSI or NFS vVol.  This sounds like what you mentioned above...  But I still get the following message:

"vSphere HA failed to create a configuration vVol for this datastore and so will not be able to protect virtual machines on the datastore until the problem is resolved. Error: Operation failed, diagnostics report: Failed to create directory .vSphere-HA (Cannot Create File)"  I also get a red exclamation mark on the vVol when viewed under the Storage node.  This seems strange to me, since I specifically excluded those vVols.

Do you know a way to force heartbeating on only traditional volumes?

[Oli71]

@Blissitt 

I was doing a reference to this https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.5/com.vmware.vsphere.avail.doc/GUID-3E042A65-9E2A-4966-B838-0E24FA54286A.html but in the meantime I discovered this which basicely void anything I said 🙂

https://cormachogan.com/2015/04/23/virtual-volumes-vvols-vsphere-ha-and-heartbeat-datastores/

I am afraid with a direct support from NetApp it is going to be difficult to track down the origin of the issue./

[jkoch]

Have we heard anything official on VSC support for vSphere 6.7 Update 3?

[Blissitt]

Has anyone gotten vVols working correctly?  I get the following error every time I try and create a vVol datastore from vSphere Web Client using the VSC plugins:

vSphere HA failed to create a configuration vVol for this datastore and so will not be able to protect virtual machines on the datastore until the problem is resolved. Error: Operation failed, diagnostics report: Failed to create directory .vSphere-HA (Cannot Create File)

The only answer I've found online so far is that I should disable HA if using ONTAP later than 9.3:

https://mysupport.netapp.com/NOW/cgi-bin/bol?Type=Detail;Display=1212933