FusionIO drivers for ESXi 6

[joergriether]

Hi,

as FusionIO is still in the works for delivering ESXi 6 drivers - my question - did anybody in the community upgraded an ESXi 5.x with working FusionIO card (Duo or SX300) to ESXi 6? If yes - could you tell us your experiences?

Best regards,

Joerg

[lokullus]

Hi,

I have not done upgrade but I've successfully install FusionIO in ESXi 6 hosts.

Just download driver from Application Acceleration – Enterprise Flash Memory Platform | Fusion-io (you have to register to the website).

Supported version is 3.2.10. It is marked for ESXi 5.5 but works with ESXi 6.

You may need to upgrade your FuisionIO card firmware.

Regards,

Filip

[Martin050]

Okay fixed the fusion drivers for ESXi 6.0u1.

What you do is:

1. Install ESXi 6.0u1 (I've used VMware-VMvisor-Installer-6.0.0.update01-3073146.x86_64.iso) as you always do (using console or ILO0;
2. Install FusionIO driver (I've used 3.2.8) scsi-iomemory-vsl-5X-3.2.8.1350-offline_bundle-1816341.zip & libvsl-1.0.0-500-offline-bundle.3.2.8.1350.zip; (see below for more details)
3. Install the latest patch for ESXi 6.0 (I've used ESXi600-201511001.zip). (see below for more details)

FusionIO driver installation:

I've got an couple of HP FusionIO (Generation 2 HP IO Accelerators) cards (673648-b21) http://h20564.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/public/detail?swItemId=MTX_04b41eb7083647c788f9d3392e&swEnvOid=4166

Get the drivers to a local datastore.

Go to the host using SSH and use esxcli to install the drivers:

esxcli software vib install -d /vmfs/volumes/abc/scsi-iomemory-vsl-5X-3.2.8.1350-offline_bundle-1816341.zip -f (change the path to your own datastore)

esxcli software vib install -d /vmfs/volumes/abc/libvsl-1.0.0-500-offline-bundle.3.2.8.1350.zip -f (change the path to your own datastore)

You have to use the -f option to force the installer to install these packages (these packages are made for ESXi 5.x)!!!!!

Reboot the machine!

Connect to the host again using SSH and install the patch:

esxcli software vib update -d /vmfs/volumes/abc/ESXi600-201511001.zip -f (change the path to your own datastore)

You have to use the -f option to force the installer to install this package (this packages will override some files)!!!!!

Reboot the machine again!

Once you've done this, the ESXi 5.x drivers are functioning under ESXi 6.0 without any problems. I use the FusionIO drives as VSAN-cache (also as storage for this test)

The drives show up in ESXi like this:

In the VSAN:

So you can use your FusionIO drives in 6.0!

An update of 5.5 to 6.0 with FusionIO drives is also possible. Just use VUM to update your hosts (worked for some of our machines, but I prefer a fresh install).

For more information use this pdf from ioMemory: ioMemory_VSL_3.2.6_User_Guide_for_VMware_ESX_and_ESXi_2013-10-07.pdf (all the commands and some background info is there. It is an older document, version 3.2.6, but the commands haven't changed).

Optionally you want to update the firmware of the FusionIO. I've used ioaccelerator_3.2.8-20140508.fff since it is compatible with the drivers (see the pdf from ioMemory how to update the firmware).

The host is compatible and 100% compliant with VUM (original base and patches, checked on January 7th 2016)

[YMtech]

Still supported and fully working on ESXi6.5

Running 2 * IOdrive2 785GB

[johandijkstra]

Still working and stable?

Which driver version are you using?