Thank you for the input.

I disagree with the "If you can do a VM snapshot, then its an issue with SMVI." statement. VM Snapshots do not do the same functions as a SMVI snapshot call to the ESX API (As per VMWare Technical Support). This is definably a communication between VSS/GuestOS/ESX Host issue. Or some greater misconfiguration...

-----Original Message----- From: Klise, Steve [mailto:klises@pamf.org] Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 3:09 PM To: Ken Williams; toasters@mathworks.com Subject: RE: SMVI / VMWare Experiences...

Couple things you have hit on, but I will regurgitate,

* Make sure you have the latest tools installed WITH THE VSS OPTION. A reboot is required * check for any SMVI snapshots. We run a morning monitoring report that has this. Its great and anyone running ESX should use it. * I have had issues with timeouts. If you can do a VM snapshot, then its an issue with SMVI. If you can't you need to start there. * I have seen issues with older 2.5.x and 3.x that neededt the hardware upgraded on the VM. * check disk timeouts

here were a couple of other things I ran across:

Solution

SnapManager for VI utilizes an internal database to keep track of these locks and provides persistence across reboots. Simply rebooting the SnapManager for VI host will not clear these locks.

If you want to remove all currently running tasks in SMVI, perform the following:

1. Stop SnapManager for VI service.

2. Remove the <SMVI dir>/server/crashdb directory.

3. Start SnapManager for VI service.

Performing these steps will not affect the scheduled jobs nor remove them from the interface. It will kill and remove any outstanding or in process tasks

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From: owner-toasters@mathworks.com on behalf of Ken Williams Sent: Wed 8/26/2009 2:32 PM To: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: SMVI / VMWare Experiences...

I'm looking for some experiences people out there may have with SMVI with NetApp. We're currently experiencing major issues with SMVI snapshots failing. I've had open tickets with NetApp/VMWare/Microsoft for 3 months and still have yet to have a solution.

My environment looks like such:

* 6 x HP DL380 G5 (32gb Ram) in a ESX Cluster * Dual Emulex 10000 Cards in each host. * Cisco MDS SAN * Netapp FAS3070 Cluster ~9tb aggregate for VMWare. * VMFS Datastores ~10-15 VMs per datastore. ~50gb per VM. * ASIS Turned on * Volume and LUNspace reservation turned off * OnTap 7.2.5.1 * Windows 2003 Guest OS.

I cant see us reaching any limitation on the Filers or the SAN. Yet we have random VMs failing snapshots every night. Are other people seeing these issues? (I've gone through the gamut of troubleshooting, version management of ESX/VMWareTools/etc). Snapshots timeout and fail at the VMWare/Guest level, not at the Netapp snapshot level.

We want to have SMVI function with VSS enabled.

Has anyone had failing snapshots been able to resolve a similar issue? Or does anyone have SMVI working properly that we could use as a reference to compare configuration?

__________________________________________________________ Ken Williams Storage Administrator, Business Technology Operations Sacramento Municipal Utility District E-Mail: kwillia@smud.org Phone: (916) 732-6744 Cell: (916) 240-4213