Monitoring a RAID 1 from ESXi

[rabbie]

Hey All,

Does anyone know of a way to monitor a RAID1 using ESXi?

I have an IBM x335 with ESXi installed and I was wondering if its possible to monitor the RAID on the machine so that I can know if any of the disks on the server fail without having to see the machine physically?

I am about to move the server to a colo room and this feature would be very useful.

Thanks.

Rabbie

www.commoncents.net.au

[SpiderIce]

If you have a RSA II card you should be able to setup a snmp trap to your IBM Director server if you have one. That would be the only way i can think of.

Thanks,

Eric

[SpiderIce]

Now that I think about it more, i remember when we did some testing that there was a place in 3i where you could configure IBM/Dell/HP hardware traps. If that is still the case you should be able to set that up to go to your IBM Director server.

[stevieg]

The ability to monitor the RAID controller and disks is within ESXi in the Hardware Health Status section. The hardware health can also have alarms set for monitoring purposes.

Screenshot below:

[Texiwill]

Hello,

Moved to ESXi Forum.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

[rabbie]

Thanks Steve,

I dont have that much information in my vi client..

Here is a screenshot of what I have:

Thanks for your help.

[Dave_Mishchenko]

To have the health status of your RAID adapter shown, the vender (server or card manufacturer) will have needed to have provided CIM extensions to ESXi. You'll see that with servers that have been certified for ESXi but it's questionable whether we'll see that for hardware that may not get certified.

[rabbie]

Hey Dave,

So the IBM x335 server is not certified? and thus doesn't have the additional information?

Thanks.

[Dave_Mishchenko]

No it's not a certified system - page 20 - http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi35_systems_guide.pdf.

[rabbie]

Ahh..

only x336 is supported... damn.

Ill try to replace the RAID controller and see if ESXi finds it. Ill let you all know.

Dave, thanks for your help! your a champ.

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Unfortunately, the 336 is not support for ESXi or ESX 3.5 (i.e. no X beside it). I'm not sure why it and the other models are even listed. Perhaps someone made a mistake with a copy and past from the ESX 3.0.x HCL. Ideally you would be looking at an x3455 or x3850, but if you're going with something else, an LSI MR based card might be your best bet - http://communities.vmware.com/message/1004988#1004988.

[rabbie]

Can anyone tell me if the Adaptec 2110S will make the Health Monitor of the RAID work in ESXi?

Thanks.