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  • 1.  keep signature or assign a new one

    Posted Feb 03, 2011 02:46 PM

    I wanted to find out the difference between keep the existing signature and assign a new signature when presenting a vmfs lun to an esx server.

    I have 2 esx farms in two sites .  Each have their own shared storage and maintained by their own virtual centre.  In site 1, i have 5 esx servers in a cluster in a VC, and is connected to a IBM storage which has 4 enclosures.  On the 4th enclosure i have setup new a datastore using all its disks ( in a lun).  I have replicated my production VM's using 3rd party products like vreplicator and veeam on to this datastore.  Once replication is finished, I am going to remove this datastore and enclosure from site 1 esx servers and storage and move it to Site2.

    Site 2 has the same storage system as site 1 so i can connect the enclosure which has the datatstore on to the esx servers in site2.  So this datastore is to presented to the esx farm in site2.  I want these replicated Vm's to be able to available if site 1 goes down like a DR site, so i will contine the replication synch between the 2 esx farms as we have network connectivity between the 2 sites.

    But my question is when i present this datastore to site 2 esx servers do i keep the signature or assign a new one.  I think keep it as the esx farms on the site 2 dont have access to the original datastore (LUN).  Also can i power on these VM's on this lun on site 2 esx servers.

    Any advise



  • 2.  RE: keep signature or assign a new one

    Posted Feb 03, 2011 05:56 PM

    I think you're right about keeping the signature at the DR site.  Since the original volumes are never seen by the DR, there should be no confusion about duplicate LUNs.  The DR won't assume that it is a replica or snap of the original volume because it has never seen the original volume. 

    However, on fail back, if you have such a mechanism in place, you'll need to consider resignaturing.  In that case, you absolutely should resignature.



  • 3.  RE: keep signature or assign a new one

    Posted Feb 06, 2011 07:19 AM

    A new signature could be useful when more version of the same datastore are on the same host.

    For example with storage snapshots: http://www.vmadmin.co.uk/vmware/35-esxserver/227-esxvmfssnap

    Thread moved to vStorage forum.

    Andre