Hi,
In my clients environment two types of HP hardware is being used.
The majority of servers being used for the virtual infrastructure are DL585 G1's.
They recently started using DL385 G5's.
The servers are used in the same cluster. Vmotion standards are met and is possible to vmotion VM's between a DL585 server and a DL385 server.
Due to DR requirements, the DL385's cannot form a different cluster.
I've created scripts for installation of ESX and the configuration of preferred path to the vdisks.
Everything was consistent. Nic Labels, VMHBA labels and preferred paths, up until they started to use DL385's.
Somehow, ESX discovers the FC HBA's before the smart array controller(SAC), labeling the FC's HBA's vmhba0 and vmhba1.
ESX assigns the SAC vmhba0 on the DL585.
Labelling the FC HBA's vmhba1 and vmhba2.
This situation is not really making my day.
I
would like to see the SAC labelon a 385 on vmhba0, so that the whole environment is configured exactly the same.
I've tried to change it by altering the PCI IRQ assignments in the BIOS and the Boot controller order, but the SAC is still getting the label vmhba2.
A clean installation was done after every change, to exclude any chached setting.
The only way I can think of is ripping out the HBA's prior to the installation, but that is not really a desirable solution.
Disabling the two HBA in the BIOS is not possible.
The two HBA's are installed in slot 4 and slot 5 (PCI-e riser card)
ESX 3.5 update 2 as well as update 3 is used. (no change in behaviour)
Prior to installation, both FC's cables are unplugged. (the NIC trick doesn't work on FC HBA's)
Does someone know a solution for this problem\behaviour?