1000v and possible issue for data storage firmware upgradation

[chandanmajumdar]

Hi all,

We have IBM N series storage controller which provide storage to esxi4.1.We have hosted out primary and secondary VSM for 1000V deployment on this ESXi4.1.

1. We need to upgrade the storage firmware and I like to know if their is any possible impact on my 1000V.
2. As this is a outage change [becuse of storage will bring dowm] i like to know why precautionary measure will be taken so that my nexus 1000v remain un affectted because of this storage controller upgradation change.
3. If their is any link available for refference .

Thanks in advance.

[Joseph Ristaino]

Hey Chandan,

What is your storage?  NFS?  iSCSI?

If your storage controller is the same as you vmnic's then you should put the host's in maintenance mode and do the upgrade.

From there you will have no VM's running on the host so traffic won't be affected regadless.

Joey

[chrisb2]

Since your storage is going down completely you will need to power off the n1k. Here are things You can do to minimize the impact of this:

1) ensure your running config matches your startup config (show run, show start)

2) ensure your system VLANS are configured correctly. Namely make the follow VLANS are system VLANS on your eths/veths that carry them: ESXi management, vCenter management, VSM management, control, packet, any storage VLAN (iSCSI or NFS)

3) make sure the VSMs have their reservations set correctly in ESX so they don't have to worry about resources during boot

Alternatively if you have a host with ESX installed on local storage you could migrate the VSMS over to that, storage vMotion the VSMS onto local storage and keep it running during the outage (though you should still verify your system VLANS)