Need an help to dis-associate service profile and associate different service profile from template

[shankrappa]

Hi Team,

 I need an help to give steps/details to dis-associate  and associate service profile.

 We have already two service profile exist in environment such as “XYZ” and “ABC” in which first three blades(Blade1,2,3)  are associated  to service profile from ‘”ABC” service profile template and Blade4 and 5 are associated  to service profile from ‘”XYZ” service profile template

 Now I need an help to dis-associate service profile for “Blade4  and need to associate service profile to “Blade4” from ABC” service profile template. So please can you let me know how can I achieve this please since all these blades are esxi host in Vmware Infra.

 FYI: Blade1,2 and 3 are in one cluster (Cluster1)and Blade4 and 5 are in different cluster(Cluster2). Due to lack of resources in Cluster1, I need to take out  service from blade4 from cluster2 and need to add to cluster1

Vmware Cluster1: Blade1,2 and 3-Associated service profile from ‘”ABC” service profile template.

Vmware Cluster2: Blade4 and 5- Associated service profile from ‘”XYZ” service profile template.

Appreciate your help

[Kirk J · Accepted solution]

Greetings.

If your service profile templates are updating type,, just unbind the service profile on blade 4 from the ABC template, and then rebind to the XYZ template.  If there any changes to the vnics or number of vnics, you are generally better of reinstalling ESXi, which takes all of 10-15 minutes.

If you don't want to reuse the same service profile (maybe due to naming conventions, etc) then just generate another service profile from the template XYZ for the blades you are re-assigning.

Again, Vsphere is not appreciative of hardware changes as a whole, so if you have ESXi installed on local disks, and are trying to re-use the same installed ESXi OS with new service profile, most of the time you are better off reinstalling ESXi fresh on that blade.

Thanks,

Kirk...

[shankrappa]

Thanks for your response.

 Both service profile templates are “Updating template”  and also we have installed esxi via boot from SAN since we have  boot LUN configured in vHBA template.As I don’t want to change anything vNIC/vHBA/name, so below is right steps to achieve goal ?

1:Shutdown blade4(esxi4)

2:Unbind the service profile of the blade4 from “XYZ” service profile template.

3:Dis-associate service profile from Blade4

4:Rebind the service profile to "Blade4" from “ABC” service profile template.(Just wanted to know that if we rebind service profile to blade4 to “ABC” service template, then  don’t we require to create  new service profile from”ABC” template and associate to Blade4 ?)

Thanks for your support

[Kirk J]

Your service profile templates contain links/references to the various pools/identities for MAC addresses, WWPN initiator addresses, etc.  If you are wanting to retain the same boot LUN (which requires using same boot policy and initiator wwpns to matching zoning & masking, then the service profile template you are moving to, needs to be using the same pools for the same WWPNs.  If the vHBA order or VNIC # or order is different, you might as well plan on reinstalling ESXi as ESXi VMNIC numbering will no longer match the VNIC number in UCSM service profile.

I would swap steps 2 & 3.

Kirk...

[shankrappa]

Thanks for your response.

As I need same boot LUN to be associate to “Blade4” ,so that ESXi will load when I associate service profile from “ABC” template.

So below seems to be right method to achieve, if so I will execute before to have confirmation during rebinding of service profile in Step4

1:Shutdown blade4(esxi4)

2:Dis-associate service profile from Blade4

3: Unbind the service profile of the blade4 from “XYZ” service profile template

4:Rebind the service profile to "Blade4" from “ABC” service profile template.

Since I have still query in Step 4 that should I need to create new service profile from “ABC” service profile template after Step 3 in order to rebind the new service profile to “Blade4” ?

Appreciate your time and response

Thanks

[Walter Dey]

I think your requirement is: whatever you do, the boot from SAN has to work.

This implies, that the initator vhba pwwn, and therefore the zoning and lun masking has to stay the same.

In the template, you refer to a pwwn pool and when creating a SP,  a pwwn value is extracted from this pool, and this value remains assigned and reserved, as long as the SP exists, whether it is associated or not.

Questions:

- are your templates XYZ and ABC refer the same pwwn pool ?

- is the pool allocation sequential or not ?

Deleting the SP will release the pwwn value from the pool; creating a new SP referring to the same pwwn pool, will allocate the same (released) value. 

However, most likely, if the 2 templates refer the same pool, the assigned pwwn value should remain as well; I would run a short test, to be sure.

[shankrappa]

Hi,

Thanks for your response.

1: are your templates XYZ and ABC refer the same pwwn pool ?-yes both “XYZ” and ‘ABC” service profile templates refer to same “PWWN POOL”

2: is the pool allocation sequential or not ? : yes, pool allocation is sequential.

So you mean when we dis-associate and unbind SP from balde4,then we can create new service profile from another SP(ABC) template by assigning same PWWN ,upon successfully association of SP, then still blade4 will load OS from boot from SAN using same PWWN .

Please correct /guide me if I wrong and assist to achieve this task.

Appreciate your time

[Walter Dey]

So you mean when we dis-associate and unbind SP from balde4,then we can create new service profile from another SP(ABC) template by assigning same PWWN ,upon successfully association of SP, then still blade4 will load OS from boot from SAN using same PWWN .

No, you need to delete the SP, which releases the pwwn value from the pool, and then creating a new SP referring the same pwwn pool, which will allocate the same pwwn.

Of course, this implies identical vhba configuration, and I also hope, that you have different vhba pools for fabric A and B.

Please checkout this steps first, before doing it on a production system. I've done it some time ago; don't think anything has changed meanwhile. 

[shankrappa]

Thanks, yes we have different pool for vHBA01-A and vHBA02-B.

Sorry to bothered since I just wanted ensure correct plan before messup in production .Then below right method ?

 1:Shutdown blade4(esxi4)

2:Dis-associate service profile from Blade4

3: Unbind the service profile of the blade4 from “XYZ” service profile template.

4:Delete service profile for Blade4

5:Create Service profile for Blade4 from “ABC” service profile template.

Appreciate your time and help

[Walter Dey · Accepted solution]

Yes ! Same of course applies to all pools, e.g. nwwn, mac,... 

But please do a configuration backup ! and first test this with one SP !

Good luck !

[shankrappa]

Thanks,Will do test and implement and will let you know.

Thanks for your great support

[shankrappa]

Hi ,

I successfully done dis-associate and associate service profile as mentioned above steps and it worked fine without any issue.

 Thanks a lot for your great support.