ESXi 3.5 into 4 upgrade problem in adding Existing VMFS partition on iSCSI SAN

[albertwt]

Hi All,

 

I've got 2x Dell PowerEdge 2950-III directly attached with Dell MD3000i iSCSI-SAN and today I had a hard times in upgrading my production ESXi 3.5 u 4 into ESXi 4.0,

 

First is that the upgrade is failed miserably after following this thread: VMware Communities: error on host upgrade: this host is not compatible with this upgrade.

with the following Error message: ERROR: Unsupported boot disk

The boot device layout on the host does not support upgrade.

 

therefore I did a clean reinstall of ESXi 4 on top of ESXi 3.5 u 4 and lost every single settings on my ESXi host.

 

I'm now stuck in mapping the iSCSI SAN partition after following the guide from: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/software/eslvmwre/AdditionalDocs/cnfigrtnguide/storage_guide.pdf

 

see the following attachment.

 

I wonder how does people do their upgrade into ESXi 4.0 in production system that is running ESXi 3.5 u 4 filled with hundreds of VM ?

 

The reason why I'm using 2x ESXi server connected into single SAN server is that I can just start the VM on the SAN from the other ESXi --> which is fine and tested, but then when i rebuild the failed server, I must delete the whole data inside the shared partition which contains my VMs.

 

So in conclusion after one of the ESXi Server failed, the iSCSI mapping would eventually destroy every single data in the partition ?

 

CMIIW

 

any idea and suggestion would be gladly appreciated

Edited May 27, 2009 by albertwt

[Theblacksheep]

I wonder how does people do their upgrade into ESXi 4.0 in production system that is running ESXi 3.5 u 4 filled with hundreds of VM ?

 

The reason why I'm using 2x ESXi server connected into single SAN server is that I can just start the VM on the SAN from the other ESXi --> which is fine and tested, but then when i rebuild the failed server, I must delete the whole data inside the shared partition which contains my VMs.

 

So in conclusion after one of the ESXi Server failed, the iSCSI mapping would eventually destroy every single data in the partition ?

 

The ESX4 HCL says your switch can only do SW ISCSI. ESX directly connected to a SAN is not supported. It may work, but its not supported. I'd fix your direct connection before you try n upgrade to ESX4.

 

You need to make sure there are no VMs on the hosts local drive.

You need at least 9.5 GB free on the host.

Installing a fresh version will wipe all settings.

 

 

To upgrade I:

 

1) Created a VM on a WS2008 32bit host and installed SQLSP2 and vCenter 4.0

2) Kicked the hosts out of vCenter 2.5 (because of SQL express limits)

3) Added the hosts to vCenter 4.0 VM (dont install client on vCenter VM)

4) Created a cluster for the old hosts and dumped them in there.

5) Took all VMs off 1 ESX3.5 host (upgrade candidate) and entered it into mantenance mode

6) Used the host update utility from the vSphere client (not vCenter) to upgrade host.

7) Took the host out of maintenance mode and put it in its own ESX4 cluster.

8) Tested moving VMs back on and off ESX4.0 host and ESX3.5 hosts.

9) Tested rebooting hosts, upgraded a second host to test VMotion, HA DRS and FT

10) Upgraded VMware tools on VMs (not Virtual hardware yet).

Edited May 26, 2009 by Theblacksheep

[albertwt]

wow.... it is rather hard to believe again for me, why direct connection which is straight forward and supposed to be fast is limited in terms of speed :-(

 

eventhough each cable has its own IP address subnet but still in my opinion that the connection used for data transmission is one only.

 

anyway, back to the real problem the ESXi implementation that i use here is a freeware solution with no software licensing at all.

[Theblacksheep]

I think its so limited because its not supported for iSCSI on ESX with your SAN.

 

In the dell support matrix it says in the connection rules part:

"Hosts can connect to an iSCSI storage array using a Layer 2 (switched) or Layer 3 (routed) network."

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/md3000i/en/SUPPORTMATRIX/3000isupportmatrix.pdf

Edited May 27, 2009 by Theblacksheep

[albertwt]

oh well, i think that i just live with it.

 

See the following attachment and it's respective result.

 

This is running on ESXi 3.5 u 4 before i did the migration to ESXi 4.0, I'll perform additional test and see how it goes with LSI Logic SAS new feature in ESXi4.