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VMware Host zoning for multi X-Brick EMC XtremIO storage array

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5 and 6.0 have a limit of 256 LUNs per host:

https://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere5/r55/vsphere-55-configuration-maximums.pdf https://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere6/r60/vsphere-60-configuration-maximums.pdf

In an environment where a host with two HBAs (VMware Best Practice) is connected to two fabrics and storage array with two Storage Controllers (EMC VNX, for example) the host will have four paths to a LUN: 2 Controllers […]

VMware ESXi 5.5/6 installation on Cisco FlexFlash drive fails with “Can’t have a a partition outside the disk!” error

I’m trying to install VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5 on Cisco UCS C220 M3 server. The local storage is Cisco Flexible Flash (FlexFlash) internal 32GB SD Card.

I repartitioned the whole SD card as one HV (Hypervisor) bootable 29GB partition:

Please refer to ‘Cisco FlexFlash: Use and Manage Cisco Flexible Flash Internal SD Card […]

HOW TO: Configure Cisco UCS power management for VMware DPM

Login to Cisco UCS Manager Configure Service Profile Management IP address Servers – Service Profile – Actions – Change Management IP address Change/Create IPMI user Servers – Policies – IPMI Access Policies IPMI over LAN – Enable Create IPMI user. The user name is CaseSENSITIVE! Check the policy is associated to the Service Profile […]

HOW TO: Configure smart zoning on Cisco MDS 9148s

New VSAN is configured in enhanced mode and we’re utilised smart zoning:

Switch01# sh zone status vsan 10 VSAN: 10 default-zone: deny distribute: full Interop: default mode: enhanced merge-control: allow <<— session: cli [admin] hard-zoning: enabled broadcast: unsupported smart-zoning: enabled <<— rscn-format: fabric-address Default zone: qos: none broadcast: unsupported ronly: unsupported Full Zoning Database : […]

HOW TO: Configure Cisco UCS Manager LDAP/AD Users Authentication

Login to the UCS Manager as admin and navigate to Admin / User Management: Right-click on LDAP Providers and select Create LDAP Provider Bind DN: CN=DirectoryBind,OU=ServiceAccounts,OU=Administration,DC=internal,DC=vstrong,DC=local Base DN: DC=internal,DC=vstrong,DC=local Filter: sAMAccountName=$userid Click Next Click Finish Right-click on LDAP Provider Groups and select Create LDAP Provider Group Type the Group name and include appropriate LDAP […]

HOW TO: Reclaim Cisco UCS Chassis ID?

Today one of our Solution Architects asked me how to reclaim Cisco UCS Chassis ID.

Someone has decommissioned a previous chassis and removed it physically! It was done weeks/months ago and chassis is gone.

If you try to recommission chassis with original ID you’ll get error: Error: Update failed: [Chassis 3 has already been allocated […]

Cisco UCS: Add/Remove VLAN on vNIC using Powershell

Recently I worked in the environment where we needed to modify multiple UCS Service Profiles, adding and removing VLANs to/from vNICs.

If you are using vNIC templates – it is just a few clicks and you are done. But what if you don’t? What if you have 20 Service Profiles and each has 10 vNics […]

Unable to create Tech Support file for UCS Manager – workspace partition is full.

Creation of ‘ucsm’ Tech Support file (Technical support data for the entire UCSM instance) for UCS Manager has failed with the following error message:

‘Failed to create the Technical Support file. Please make sure that there is enought space on bootflash. For Example:- You can delete unused firmware images to free up bootflash space’

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HOW TO: Add Cisco Nexus 1000V licenses

A couple of days ago I had a strange problem on newly deployed VMware ESX hosts which were added to Cisco 1000V Distributed Virtual Switch. Both, the Management Network and vMotion interfaces were OK but VMs on any other port groups did not have network connection. The UCS server profiles were configured correctly and all […]

EMC UIM/P: Server Provisioning failed: Could not create zones.

EMC UIM/P server provisioning failed with the following error message:

This error message is not a problem with UIM/P (Come on! Stop blaming UIM for everything!), it is Cisco MDS SAN switch “Enhanced zoning” feature.

Enhanced zoning uses a session locking facility like CFS to prevent simultaneous zoning configuration changes by two users on […]