VSAN-Troubleshooting-Reference-Manual

Diagnostics and Troubleshooting Reference Manual – Virtual SAN
4. VMware Compatibility Guide & Virtual SAN
The VMware Compatibility Guide (VCG, also known as the Hardware Compatibility
List or HCL) - http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php -
contains lists of devices and components that have been successfully tested and
qualified to work with Virtual SAN. It includes specific model numbers,
recommended drivers and firmware.
It is imperative that you verify that VMware supports the hardware components
(including driver and firmware versions) that are being used in a Virtual SAN cluster.
Many of the issues reported by customers for Virtual SAN relate to unsupported
hardware, drivers or firmware. In this section, we will show you how to verify that
your infrastructure supports Virtual SAN.
WARNING: failure to precisely adhere to the guidelines provided in the VMware
Compatibility Guide may result in erratic performance, unusual error conditions
and/or potential data loss. VMware support may not be in a position to assist
you if the components used to build a Virtual SAN environment are not on the
VCG.
The hope is that the Virtual SAN hardware has been checked and verified before
deployment, but should there be a need to check whether or not a Virtual SAN
cluster is running with supported components, the procedures outlined here will
help to verify.
Checking vSphere software versions
While VMware supports Virtual SAN running with vSphere 6.0, 5.5U2 and 5.5U1, it
would always recommend running the latest versions of vSphere software, both
ESXi and vCenter Server. Ensure that your vCenter server version, visible from the
vSphere web client UI is synchronized with the ESXi versions, visible via the vmware
–v command run from the ESXi command line.
VMware had a large number of participants in the Virtual SAN BETA in vSphere 5.5.
VMware does not support BETA code in production environments obviously, and
significant changes were made to the on-disk format of Virtual SAN before it was
made generally available (GA). So although Virtual SAN code is available in vSphere
5.5, the Virtual SAN code is beta quality and you cannot use this in production.
You must use vSphere 5.5U1, 5.5U2 or later as mentioned earlier.
Be aware that VMware does not support upgrading a BETA version of Virtual SAN to
a GA version. In such cases, a fresh deployment of Virtual SAN is required, i.e. a
fresh deployment of vSphere 5.5U1, 5.5U2, etc. Do not attempt to upgrade from
5.5 to 5.5U1 or 5.5U2 if you were previously using the beta version of Virtual SAN,
and wish to use the GA version.
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