Storage Tests may fail when using NVMe as Guest Controllers with SCSI vVOL on Windows Server Failover Clusters (WFSC)

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0

Issue/Introduction

• With the release of VMware vSphere 8.0 Update 3, VMware by Broadcom has included NVMe reservation support for Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) solution for NVMe-backed disks  on vSphere Virtual Volumes (vVOLs).
• This support includes for both FC and TCP transport. 
• NVMe guest controllers are also supported as the frontend for WSFC with NVMe-backed disks.
• However with NVMe guest controllers as the frontend; having SCSI-backed vVoL disks are not supported, and this may result in failure  while running WSFC cluster validation for Storage Tests.
• "Validate SCSI-3 Persistent Reservation" is the specific test that may fail:

Note: The  above issue is applicable only with WSFC clustering solution on vVOL with NVMe as guest controllers and SCSI vVol devices as the backend.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0 U3

WSFC clustering with vVOL-backed SCSI devices and NVMe Guest controller.

Cause

This is caused when the storage array does not support implementation of  the SCSI "Read_full_status Persistent Reservation" command.

Resolution

There is no resolution at this moment.

If the storage array does not support "SCSI Read_full_status" command, the workaround would be to use SCSI Guest Controller (PVSCSI) with vVOL backed SCSI devices for the WFSC nodes