Hi all,
This is my first post so please excuse any incorrect forum etiquette on my part.
I have been working through the labs over the last few months and have found them to be extremely good. I am however experiencing issues with the sections around the UCS B-Series OS Installation and Testing specifically. My background is routing and switching and Service Provider networking so I am fully expecting these to be issues/oversights on my part but would appreciate any guidance you my be able to impart.
In this specific case I have been working on rack 7 but have experienced these issues on multiple occasions, mainly on the new racks.
1) As I understand the documentation with regard to the SAN boot set-up, Service Profile ESXi1 boots from LUN1, Service Profile ESXi2 boots from LUN2 and both use LUN0 as the common datastore (which is where I assume that the VMX images for the VMs are stored). After creating and booting the relevant service profiles I have experienced the following issues:
Service Profile ESXi1 - boots ESXi image from disk using LUN1. However, sometimes the image installs with pre-configured IP address, sometime without pre-configured IP address. Why would this be and is it indicative of any other VMWare default configuration being unavailable (e.g. if the IP didn't get read into the build the VMWare storage configuration wouldn't have been installed, etc.)?
Service Profile ESXi2 - I can not ever boot from LUN2 in any rack
Service Profile ESXi2 - boot from LUN0 or LUN1 then required manual addressing
2) Some ESXi images that are booted from various LUNs (either 0 or 1 depending on specific rack) do not allow access with the default password (cciedc01). When the SP is booted from a different LUN access is permitted. When a second SP is pointed at the original LUN access is permitted..?
3) When ESXi1 or ESXi2 are booted and accessible via VLAN 115 I access the ESXi management instance using the vShpere Client. In every instance of lab I have booted the service profiles from all LUNs in turn. In each case the datastore is already mapped but empty. There are no VMX images available. As this is the case I have not been able to boot WWW or vCenter VMs. I am at a loss as to what I am missing here.
4) I experience issues every time on every rack with the Win2K8-BM service profile. Every time the OS loads the NIC is not installed. I am unable to find the UCS NIC drivers on either server in the rack rental to perform the NIC install. Are the drivers available somewhere within the UCS management software (e.g. via a browser at 192.168.0.100)?
5) In some instances (tonight as an example) when booting the Win2K8-BM SP the OS is not found on the local disk. There is initially a warning as the SP is created with a RAID1 local disk policy but there is only a single disk in the server (in rack 7 among others). When the local policy is changed for a 'no mirror' policy the SP boots but does not find a local OS. On previous rack rentals I have successfully booted the server using a 'no mirror' policy.
If anyone can shed any light on any of these points I would greatly appreciate it.
Many thanks for your time...