Issue with 6248's

[skumar7193]

This is the Boot from SAN configuration:

6248(2.0.1q)->9148->VMAXe.  We are getting a message from vCenter “The ESX Host does not have persistent storage”.

The original Hosts will Boot from SAN, but are seeing issues (Cannot see the storage in vCenter).

When we try and reinstall Vsphere 5 on an existing blade or new blade, the OS doesn’t see the Luns (although the server does in the BIOS Post).

Has anybody seen this?

Does this have anything to do with Persistent Binding Flag on the UCS HBAs

Thanks

[Jeremy Waldrop]

So when the server boots and the Cisco vHBA boot driver loads you see the VMAX boot LUN?

[skumar7193]

No the LUNs are not seen. This problem is due to fnic and enic drivers. After we built a custom 4.1U1 ISO with that driver included LUNs were visible and we were able to deploy successfully

We are not able to repeat that with the 5.0 Image because of the driver lacking the required info.

[Jeremy Waldrop]

Which mezzanine adapter do you have? I have done numerous installs of ESXi 4.1 and 5 with the Cisco VIC adapter and have never had to load a custom driver or use a custom ISO.

[skumar7193]

I have done it numerous times too but Not on the 6248's. To your question though adapter is Cisco VIC (M81KR to be specific)

Setup is UCS 2.0 HW with 2208 I/O and 6248 UP

You can find the details when they become available at Cisco Bug ID  CSCtu14051

[Jeremy Waldrop]

Strange, I wonder what the difference is in your environment?

I have done ESXi 4.1/5 on both 6100s and 6248s. Just did 1 yesterday using the standard VMware ESXi 5 ISO. Firmware was 2.01q.

One my lab blades even has the new 1280 VIC that hasn't beed release yet but both ESXi 4.1/5 load using boot from SAN using the standard VMware ISO.

From an OS perspective it shouldn't matter which fabric interconnect or FEX as the blade and VIC are the same.

All of my installs using 6248s have been on B200s.