Vmware Vcenter Installation Guide

LSI Storage vCenter Plug-inInstallation and User Guide

V1.0June 2010

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Document Number: 48045-00Copyright © 2010 LSI CorporationAll Rights Reserved

Revision History

Version and Date Description of Changes

V1.0, June 2010 Initial Release of the document.

LSI Corporation Confidential | June 2010 Page 3

Table of Contents

LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in Installation and User Guide Table of Contents

vCenter Integrated Storage Manager Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Installation Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Recommended Configurations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Software Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

Application and vCenter Server Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

Uninstalling the LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

ESX Host SAN Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

ESX Host Configuration Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

Configuring Storage Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

Datastore to LUN View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31

Storage Array Event Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32

Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Application Server Logs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32

Common Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33

Maximizing Client Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33

Preventing Slow Script Warning Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33

Manually Unregistering the LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33

Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Page 4 LSI Corporation Confidential | June 2010

LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in Installation and User GuideTable of Contents


LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in Installation and User Guide v1.0 vCenter Integrated Storage Manager Overview

Installation and User Guide

vCenter Integrated Storage Manager Overview

The LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in is a VMware vCenter 4.0 plug-in that provides integrated management of LSI storage systems within vCenter. The plug-in will allow the vCenter administrator to automatically configure ESX hosts to LSI storage systems, create, map, delete storage volumes from the LSI storage system to the ESX host, and view the vCenter datastores to LSI storage system volumes. The plug-in uses a separate application server to facilitate the interface between the vSphere Client and the LSI storage system based on the authenticated logged-in user.

NOTE: The LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in requires that a vCenter Server be installed within the environment. The plug-in will not function in a vSphere Client and ESX host-only configuration.

Figure 1: Communication Detail

LSI Storage vCenter Plug-inThis document describes the LSI Storage vCenter plug-in, which is part of the AppAware and vCenter products.


LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in Installation and User Guide v1.0Installation Requirements

Installation Requirements The following requirements must be met in order to install and use the LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in.

LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in requirements:

VMware vCenter 4.0 server (installed)

Windows 2003, 2003 R2, 2008, or 2008 R2 server (either 32-bit or 64-bit) acting as the application server

LSI storage system with VMware-certified firmware

In addition, system names and IP addresses of vCenter and LSI storage systems are required during installation. Use Table 1 as a template to document the system names and IP addresses of the equipment to be used during the installation process.

Recommended Configurations The LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in uses SMI-S to communicate with the storage systems that will be managed within the vSphere infrastructure. Due to the nature of the SMI-S protocol, numerous procedure calls must be made to obtain and send changes to the storage system, which require large amounts of data to be passed between the storage systems, application server and vSphere Client. For this reason, it is recommended that you limit the size of the storage systems and number of objects to be managed. The following are the recommended maximums for this release of the plug-in. The number of systems being managed and the number of volumes and physical disks on each system will determine the overall performance of the plug-in.

Table 1: Configuration Worksheet Example

vCenter Server Name: VCENTER-4 DNS Name: vcenter-4.lsi.com

Address: 147.145.51.217

vCenter Administrator Name:

administrator Password: password

Application Server Name:

App-Server DNS Name: app-server.lsi.com

IP Address: 147.145.51.225

LSI Storage System 1 Name:

WinterPark-173-174 IP Address: 147.145.50.173/174

Password: N/A


IP Address:

Password:


IP Address:

Password:

Storage Administrator User ID:

User1




LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in Installation and User Guide v1.0 Recommended Configurations

Recommended maximum configuration:

10 LSI storage system arrays

64 physical drives per array

100 volumes per array

NOTE: The LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in performance is impacted by the CPU performance of the vSphere client system and is a singled-threaded process. The higher the megahertz (MHz) of the CPU, the better the performance of the plug-in will be realized.

Software Installation Obtain the correct version of the LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in for your environment (x86 or x64) from the following link: x86 link or x64 link. The file should be named SMIA-vCenter-WS32-10.65.30.xx for the Windows 32-bit version or SMIA-vCenter-WSX64-10.65.30.xx for the Windows 64-bit version. The file should be copied to the application server.

NOTE: The application server must be a separate Windows 2003 or 2008 server that will be dedicated to the vCenter Integrated Storage Manager. This system can be configured as a virtual machine within the environment, which is the recommended method.

Once the LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in software has been downloaded, run the package on the application server to launch the installation wizard. The installation wizard will install a Jetty application server, SMI-S provider, and register the plug-in within the vCenter server. Note that the details of the equipment in the environment, such as IP addresses and DNS names, must be supplied during the installation process. Table 1 on page 6 may be used to help facilitate recording this information for the installation.

Installation steps by screen:

1. Read the introduction screen, and then click Next.

2. Read through the license agreement and if you accept the terms, select the appropriate radio button, and click Next.

3. Select the local installation directory for the plug-in manager or click Next for the default.

4. Review the installation details and click Install if the details are correct.

NOTE: During the installation process, several command line prompts will open and close; this is normal behavior.

5. During the installation process, the wizard will pause and display a Notepad file that must be edited as shown in Figure 2 on page 8. Click the "ArrayHosts" Notepad window to edit the file with the IP addresses of the LSI storage systems that will be managed from the LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in. Add both IP addresses, on separate lines, for each LSI storage system that will be managed. Select File >> Save and then Exit to close the Notepad window and continue the installation process.


LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in Installation and User Guide v1.0Recommended Configurations

NOTE: Additional storage arrays may be added later via the LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in All Storage Arrays view.

NOTE: Any storage arrays that have been entered into this file must be manually removed if the desired storage array will no longer be managed by the LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in (The "Remove Storage Array" procedure will not modify this file and upon restart of the CIMOM, the storage arrays listed will be re-added to the CIMOM). The file is located on the application server C:\lsi\ArrayHosts.txt.

Figure 2: ArrayHosts Configuration

6. Change the port number of the Jetty server or accept the default of 8443, and click Next.

7. Change the IP address of the application server if desired. The IP address will default to the IP address of the system the installer is running on. Click Next.

8. The next screen prompts you for the IP address of the vCenter server that the plug-in will be installed on. Enter the IP address of the vCenter server, and click Next.

9. Enter the Administrator's email address for alerts, and click Next.

10. Next, enter the vCenter Administrator's User ID, and click Next.

11. Enter the vCenter Administrator's password, and click Next.

12. The installation is now complete and you may select Done to close the installation wizard.



NOTE: To verify successful installation of the application server, run services.msc and verify that the cimserver service has been installed and has started along with the Jetty6-Service service. This is the Pegasus CIMOM that is used to communicate with the storage systems. Also note that once the Application Server has been rebooted, the name of the CIMOM service will change to "Pegasus CIM Object Manager."

Application and vCenter Server Configuration

Once the application server has been installed, verify the LSI Storage vCenter Plug-In has been successfully registered with the vCenter server. Open a vSphere Client to the vCenter Server and select Plug-ins >> Manage Plug-ins. You should see the LSI Storage vCenter Plug-In listed as Enabled. If it is listed as disabled with an error message stating that it cannot communicate with the application server, verify that the port number defined for the Jetty server is enabled to pass through any firewalls that may be in use. The default Jetty TCP port number is 8443.

After the application server and vCenter server have been configured, you should now see the LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in icon on the home page of the vSphere Client under the "Solution and Application" section as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: vCenter Plug-in

Configuring Storage AdministratorRole

By default, any defined vCenter user ID will have read-only rights to LSI storage systems. This means that any user will be able to view the storage system configuration but will not be able to make any changes, including the vCenter Administrator user ID. To authorize user IDs to manage the storage system, you must define a new role in vCenter. Select vSphere Client Home >> Roles to define a new role.

Steps for defining a new role:

1. Click Add Role from Home >> Administration >> Roles >> vCenter server screen.

2. Enter Storage Administrator for the name of the new Role.



3. Select the permissions that a member of this role only will need. If the vCenter Administrator ID will be added to this role, it is recommended that you select All Privileges for this role.

4. Click OK to add the new role.

Figure 4: Storage Administrator Role

5. From the Home screen, select Hosts and Clusters, select the vCenter server element and click the Permissions tab.

6. Right-click and select Add Permission... to define the users who will be members of the storage administrator role.

NOTE: The LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in compares the user ID to check if it is a member of the storage administrator role only. The plug-in does not check if the user ID is a member of a group ID that is assigned the storage administrator role; therefore, each user ID that requires read-write permission to the storage systems must explicitly have the storage administrator role assigned to that user ID.



Figure 5: Assign Storage Administrator Role

7. From the wizard, select the user ID that will require read-write access to the storage systems.

8. Select the Storage Administrator Role from the drop-down box, and click OK to apply changes.

SSL Certificate Management Once the storage administrator role has been defined and the appropriate user IDs have been configured with the role, some final installation tasks might need to be performed. The LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in uses SSL to secure communications between the vSphere Client and application server. For this reason, the first time a procedure is called using the plug-in, you will receive a SSL certificate warning message as shown in Figure 6 on page 12. The application server will generate a new SSL certificate during the installation process and this certificate should then be installed using the following method:

1. From the vSphere Client, select a resource element, such as an ESX host, VM, or resource pool, and select the Datastore tab. This action generates a security alert, which allows the user to install the new SSL certificate.



Figure 6: SSL Certificates

2. From the Security Alert window, click View Certificate, and verify the certificate information.

3. From the Certificate window, click Install Certificate, and click OK to close.

Enhanced IE Security If the vSphere client system has Microsoft’s Enhanced IE Security installed, the warning message shown in Figure 7 on page 13 is presented to the user. Click the Add button to configure a trust relationship with the application server.


LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in Installation and User Guide v1.0 LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in Features

Figure 7: Enhanced Security Message

Uninstalling the LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in

The LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in may be uninstalled using the supplied uninstaller located on the Application Server C:\Program Files\LSI Storage vCenter Plug-In\Uninstall LSI Storage vCenter Plug-In\Uninstall LSI Storage vCenter Plug-In.exe or from the application server run Add/Remove Programs (Programs and Features on Windows 2008) and select the LSI Storage vCenter Plug-In package to uninstall the plug-in and SMI-S provider packages.

LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in Features

The LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in allows for integrated management of LSI storage systems using the following features. These will be detailed in the following sections.

ESX host storage configuration wizard

Storage system volume management

Datastore to LUN detail view

Storage system event log view


LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in Installation and User Guide v1.0LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in Features

ESX Host SAN Configuration This plug-in allows for an ESX host to be automatically configured to use an LSI storage system by detecting the installed host bus adapters (HBAs) within the ESX host and configuring new hosts on the storage system with the Worldwide Names (WWNs) of the HBAs from the ESX host. The default ESX multipathing mode for LSI Storage Systems is Most Recently Used (MRU). To ensure optimum performance for the ESX host with more than two HBAs, the ESX host should be configured to use the storage system in pairs of HBAs. This method allows for the maximum I/O throughput from the ESX host to the storage system. Using this method requires proper SAN configuration and balancing of LUNs between hosts/host groups. Figure 8 shows a properly configured two-HBA port ESX host SAN configuration using two fabric switches and a dual-controller storage system.

Figure 8: Dual Port HBA Configuration

This example shows a fully redundant fabric configuration. In the event that a FC switch or HBA should fail, (Figure 9 on page 15) the alternate switch still has a connection to both storage controllers in the storage system. If a storage controller should also fail (Figure 10 on page 15), the ESX host still has access to the remaining controller and all volumes would fail over to that controller. A complete loss of access to storage occurs if any other element fails.



Figure 9: Single Failure

Figure 10: Double Failure



This method works well to maintain the environment in case of a hardware failure; however, MRU will only maintain one active path for each HBA group. Therefore, if you have an ESX host with four HBAs, only one will be active at a time. To achieve higher I/O throughput from the ESX host to the storage system, it is recommended that you group the HBAs in pairs and create virtual hosts for each pair of HBAs. This will allow for a fully redundant configuration but will also allow for two of the HBAs to be active at the same time versus a single HBA (see Figure 11). From the storage system, the second pair of HBAs is defined as a separate host and volumes can then be mapped directly to the new host or host group. This same methodology can be used to group additional HBAs in the same manner. This does require additional management to balance the LUNs between the hosts/host groups to fully use the Fibre Channel bandwidth between all HBA groups. If this method will be used in the environment, the Automatic ESX host configuration utility cannot determine which HBAs are configured to each zone in the environment and the user will need to verify that a single HBA is connected to both fabric zones for each HBA pair group.

Figure 11: HBA Configuration

NOTE: The intent of this configuration is to pair the HBAs so that no group of HBA ports would be contained on a single HBA card (if dual port cards are being used).

Figure 12 on page 17 shows how an eight-port HBA configuration may be configured.



Figure 12: 8 HBA Configuration

ESX Host Configuration Wizard To use the Automatic Host Configuration utility, navigate to Hosts and Clusters within the vSphere Client and select the ESX host to be configured; right-click the ESX host, and select the Configure Host Mapping option from the pull-down menu (Figure 13 on page 18).



Figure 13: ESX Host Configuration Wizard

This action launches the Automatic Host Configuration wizard (Figure 14 on page 19). From this wizard, you can see how the current ESX host has been configured to the storage system (if it is already configured). You can also add a host or host group, rename a host or host group, remove a host or host group, and automatically configure the ESX host to another storage array.



Figure 14: Automatic Host Configuration Wizard

To automatically configure the ESX host to the LSI storage system, click the storage Array to be configured, and click the Suggest button. This action groups any unassigned HBA ports into pairs and defines a new host and host group for the groups of HBAs (Figure 15 on page 20). If the suggested configuration is correct, click OK to apply the changes to the storage system or modify the configuration based on the Fibre Channel zoning rules from the previous ESX Host SAN Configuration on page 14. The wizard then displays progress while the requested configuration changes are being made. You must manually close the progress window after the changes are complete (Figure 16 on page 21).



Figure 15: Suggested HBA Configuration

NOTE: To use multiple host groups as described, the storage array must have the Storage Partitioning premium feature enabled.



Figure 16: Commit Changes

The ESX host has now been configured to the storage system. The next step is to create new volumes on the storage system to be used by the ESX host. New volumes are created using the LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in.

Configuring Storage Arrays To use the plug-in to create or modify volumes on the storage system, click the LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in icon from the Home screen under Solutions and Applications (Figure 17 on page 22).



Figure 17: LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in Icon

Clicking the icon opens the Storage Array Manager view, where you can manage LSI Storage Systems. The Storage Array Manager view displays a list of known storage systems and allows for additional storage systems to be added or removed (Figure 18 on page 23). This view also displays the health status of known storage systems.



Figure 18: Array Manager View

From this window, select the storage system to be configured for the ESX host. A summary view is shown for the selected storage system in which several key storage system parameters are shown, such as the number of storage controllers in-use, number of drive trays, types of drives, and so forth (see Figure 19 on page 24). The summary view also displays a graphic representation of storage array capacity and how it is currently configured. Available commands from this view include entering the Storage Array password (if it is already set) and viewing the Storage Array Event log.



Figure 19: Storage Array Summary

Selecting the volumes tab will show a logical view that shows how storage capacity is allocated. This view also allows you to create new volume groups and volumes. Additionally, existing volumes and volume groups may be modified or deleted here. To create a new volume group, select the Unconfigured Capacity tree node and click the Create Volume Group link.



Figure 20: Storage Array Volumes

The Create Volume Group link launches a wizard that will walk you through creating a new volume group (Figure 21 on page 26). During this process, you will need to choose from the available free drives the drives that will make up the new volume group and select the RAID level to be used (Figure 22 on page 26).



Figure 21: Create Volume Group

Figure 22: Volume Group Drive Selection

NOTE: Any action that will perform an action on the storage array prompts for a storage array password. If the storage array password is not used, leave the field blank, and click OK.



After a new volume group is created, new volumes may be created from the free capacity within the volume group. To create a new volume within a volume group, select the volume group to be configured and click the Create Volume link to launch the Create Volume Wizard (Figure 23). From the wizard, you can enter the desired capacity, volume name, and I/O characteristics of the volume. Click Finish to create the volume.

Figure 23: Create Volume Wizard

After creating new volumes, use the Mappings tab to present the volumes to the ESX host for use (Figure 24 on page 28). From this view, the user can manage hosts, host groups, and volume mappings. To present a new volume to an ESX host, click the Add Mapping link to start the Add Mapping Wizard (Figure 25 on page 29).



Figure 24: Volume Mapping View

From the wizard, select the host group or host to which the new volume will be mapped. Select the LUN number to use and volume to be mapped. Click Add to complete the mapping.



Figure 25: Add Mapping Wizard

NOTE: If your environment uses multiple groups of HBAs per ESX host, the new volumes should be balanced across all hosts/host groups. Do not add all the volumes to a single host/host group; no I/O balancing can occur in this case.

After the volumes have been mapped to the ESX host, the storage adapters on the ESX host must be rescanned to detect the new storage volumes. This action is accomplished from the Configuration tab in the Hosts and Clusters view, and click Storage Adapters for the ESX host being configured (Figure 26 on page 30).

NOTE: It might be necessary to run the rescan twice to detect all of the new storage volumes that have been mapped to the ESX host.



Figure 26: Storage Adapters Rescan

From this view, the user can also verify that the correct number of paths have been configured and the Fibre Channel switch zoning is correct. By right-clicking one of the devices listed under the storage adapter and selecting Manage Paths..., a window is displayed that shows the number of paths for the target device. There should be four paths to each device with one Active and 3 Standby as shown in Figure 27 on page 31.



Figure 27: Drive Path Configuration

Datastore to LUN View After datastores are created on storage system volumes, use the Datastore tab to understand the mapping of datastores to storage system volumes. The intent of this view is to provide administrators with a quick status and view of the datastores and their underlying storage volumes.

Use this view to identify the storage array where the datastore resides and the associated storage array volume. You can view the health status of the volume, the associated host/host group, RAID level, capacity and datastore free space. This view also displays the details of the datastore, such as the extent, LUN number, and health status.

The Datastore view (Figure 28) is context sensitive, so selecting a VM in the tree only displays storage elements for the selected VM.

Figure 28: Datastore to LUN View


LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in Installation and User Guide v1.0Troubleshooting

Storage Array Event Log The LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in also provides the ability to view the Storage Array Event Log for a specific Storage Array. The event log is accessed from the View Event Log link under the Storage Array Summary screen. Although the event log output can be somewhat cryptic and many events may have duplicate entries, the details are critical in identifying storage system faults. Figure 29 shows the output of the Event Log. This window provides filtering for critical or all events and allows you to see details for the selected event. The Event Log will retrieve the most recent 100 events by default, but additional events may be viewed by entering a larger number and clicking Update.

NOTE: The Event Log may contain a large number of events and attempting to gather all events may take an extremely long time due to the nature of SMI-S. We recommend that you use the SANtricity Storage Manager to gather any support bundles or resolving storage array hardware problems.

Figure 29: Event Log View

Troubleshooting

Application Server Logs Detailed entries from the application server are written to the Jetty service log that is located on the Application Server C:\Program Files\LSI Storage vCenter Plug-In\jetty\logs\jetty-service.log. This is the most helpful log for determining issues between the application server and storage systems.


LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in Installation and User Guide v1.0 Troubleshooting

Common Errors The most common errors that have been encountered are:

Unable to communicate with application server

— Check firewall settings to ensure the Jetty TCP port is enabled.— Verify the cimserver/Pegasus server service is started on the application server.— Verify the Jetty6-Service is started on the application server.

Unable to create/delete objects

— Verify the current user ID has storage administrator role assigned explicitly.

Maximizing Client Performance The LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in is a client side intensive application and as such, it is recommended to use a fast CPU client, with sufficient memory to avoid page swapping, to run the vSphere Client from. The client is a single-threaded operation and will perform best on higher MHz CPUs, but will not take advantage of multi-core CPUs.

Preventing Slow Script Warning Messages

Depending on the size of the storage environment being managed, some of the views may generate a slow script warning message and delay the processing of the view. These warning messages may be suppressed by applying the following registry change on the system the vSphere Client is being run from as detailed in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/175500 Knowledge Base article from Microsoft.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Styles

DWORD "MaxScriptStatements" set to 0xFFFFFFFF

Manually Unregistering the LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in

If the storage manager plug-in needs to be removed, the following procedure may be used if it is not possible to uninstall the plug-in from the application server.

1. Start a web browser and navigate to the IP address of the vCenter server with /mob appended to the IP address (example: http://147.145.51.217/mob).

2. Click the content link to navigate to the available ServiceContent.

3. Click the ExtensionManager link to display a list of registered extensions

4. Click the UnregisterExtension link and enter the extension name to be unregistered from the list of available extensions (example: LSI Storage vCenter Plug-In).

5. Click the Invoke Method link to unregister the extension.

6. The vSphere Client must be restarted to reflect the changes.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/175500


LSI Storage vCenter Plug-in Installation and User Guide v1.0Conclusions

Figure 30: Manual Unregister Extension

Conclusions The vCenter plug-in allows administrators in small environments to have a single management interface (vCenter) to manage all of their day-to-day storage needs along with their VMware infrastructure. This alleviates the need for vCenter administrators to learn another management tool and focus instead on the entire virtual infrastructure.

The LSI development team hopes you find this application useful and we request any feedback you have that may help us improve our products in the future. Please send your feedback to [email protected].

Thanks!

LSI Development Team

Documents

Vmware Vcenter Installation Guide