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Qiese Dides
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

====================

 

VIC FNIC driver does not support Virtual Volumes ( second level LUN ID )

 

An enhancement request has been created to track this feature - CSCux64473

 

UPDATE - 12-14-2016

We made some traction on the enhancement request - The Fix is in the FNIC driver 1.6.0.33 which has been unit tested with Netapp and EMC and checked in. We are pushing it through the QA cycle as we speak. This may take weeks - I will give an update once I have a finalized date.

====================

 

Introduction

 

VMware just released a new feature called VMware Virtual Volumes (VVOL) (available in VSphere/VCenter 6.0). This document will help you and the customer understand what it is and how it is supported within UCS. VVol is highly dependent on storage and not so much on compute. So at first we needed to verify if the storage vendor supports it.

 

Problem Description

 

Customers have been trying to connect to the VVOL but have not been able to.  It turns out that there needs to be an additional capability present on the HBA.  It is called second level lun ID (SLLID). This Article will go through how to check if their VIC adapters have this feature available and how to enable it.

 

Solution

 

Release notes for the VIC adapters at the moment have no documentation over SSLID and if they support it or not. We have reached out to the alias to add this documentation to the release notes since a large number of customers are running VMware on UCS (Flexpod, Vblock, Smartstack). VMware has a KB on this issue located below;

 

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=211497...

 

This article gives you a command “esxcli storage core adapter list” which will verify if your adapter has the capability of Second Level Lun ID.

 

 

VVOL support is not dependent on a particular compute platform, one of the driver features needed by VVOL is. This results in Cisco having only 4 HBA / CNA adapters that can support VVOL. Based on the VMware compatibility guide (link is also below) it is shown that these are only supported by Cisco 1GigE I350 LOM, UCS VIC P81E, VICm81KR, and VIC-1285 adapters. What was odd are these are all old adapters.

 

http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=io&productid=10474&deviceCat...

 

However, The VIC 1340 (in the guise of the MLOM in the b200-M4) shows support for the Second Level Lun ID feature. They just aren’t on the VMware list. As of now FNIC drivers are not supported with SSLID. What it boils down to is that our drivers support the feature, but VMware’s HCL is not up to date on that fact. We are in the process of helping them get the HCL updated.

 

 

Comments
Matthew Drake
Level 1
Level 1

This document states that the VIC 1340 supports Second Level Lun ID. However, running the command "esxcli storage core adapter list" does not show the capability. (ESXi 6.0U1 with finc driver 1.6.0.24)

Qiese Dides
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Hi Matthew,

At the top it states that FNIC drive is not supported yet and we put in an enhancement request to get that up to date.

Matthew Drake
Level 1
Level 1

To me the following lines read that the 1340 supports it, but the VMware HCL doesn't list it.

"However, The VIC 1340 (in the guise of the MLOM in the b200-M4) shows support for the Second Level Lun ID feature. They just aren’t on the VMware list. This implies that all vics that use the fnic driver will have that support,"

  • Is there any ETA in when it might be supported?
Qiese Dides
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Hi Matthew,

I don't have an ETA, I need to change that line since when we were doing testing and creating this article we found out that it didn't sorry about that.

"However, The VIC 1340 (in the guise of the MLOM in the b200-M4) shows support for the Second Level Lun ID feature. They just aren’t on the VMware list. This implies that all vics that use the fnic driver will have that support, though this requires more testing"

I edited the top in bold but forgot to take out that line, went ahead and did the change.

I will try to reach out and see if they have a date in mind.

Regards,

Matthew Drake
Level 1
Level 1

Qiese,

Any update on this? I am at Cisco Live! this week, and so far everyone I asked has no answers.

Matt

Any update on this?

I have 1227(C240M4s) and 1240(B200M3s) with an VMAX all flash and would like to use VVols.

Thanks.

Qiese Dides
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Hi Everyone,

We made some traction on the enhancement request - The Fix is in the FNIC driver which has been United tested with Netapp and EMC and checked in. We are pushing it through the QA cycle as we speak. Once I have the verification and FNIC driver version I will re-post.

FNIC Driver will be 1.6.0.33 - Will be a few weeks until QA testing is done. Will inform of the results.

Qiese,

Thanks for the update.  Will Cisco provide a list of versions of Esxi will be supported such as 6.0 or is the recommendations will be 6.5 being it will have newer version of VVols support and also HBAs and Storage arrays? 

asharma
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Will the 1.6.0.33 fnic driver also support VVOLS2.0 in vSphere 6.5? 

Thanks, Archana

alexnikousefat1
Community Member

Hi

Has there been any updates on this yet?  I am running ESXi 6U2 on Cisco B200 M4 with 1340 VIC connected to Nimble storage and like to use VVOL.

Thanks

Looks like it is supported now in the latest FNIC driver, 1.6.0.33 released on the 22nd of Feb 2017.

These are the release notes

New Features:
- Supports Secondary Lun ID (VVOL)

Bugs Fixed (in fnic 1.6.0.33 since fnic 1.6.0.28)
CSCux64473 : Request for Virtual volume support in ESXi fnic driver

https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?downloadGroup=DT-ESX60-CISCO-FNIC-16033&productId=491

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