vSAN ESA -- VCF 9 Installer fails to deploy -- Failed on the ESA Disk Ccompliance

Products

• VMware SDDC Manager
• VMware vSAN

Issue/Introduction

During the VCF 9.x Installer Workflow, the Installer performs a pre-validation of installed ESA Disks to determine whether the ESA drives are listed on the HCL.

In order to do so, the VCF Installer utilizes the offline HCL DB file saved on vCenter or automatically downloads the current version of the HCL DB file from Broadcom.

If one or more vSAN ESA Disks are not listed in the HCL DB file and/or this Validation Process encounters any issues, the VCF Deployment is halted

 

• You observe the following message:

 

No vSAN ESA certified disks found on the ESXi Host ####################

Remediation: No vSAN ESA certified disks found on the ESXI Host #################### Provide ESXI Host with vSAN ESA certified disks. 

 

 

• Domainmanager.log on the VCF Installer shows errors similar to the following:

/var/log/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/domainmanager.log

INFO [vcf_dm,######,####] [c.v.e.s.v.a.ValidateVsanEsaHclCompatibilityAction,dm-exec-31] Host ########## have vSAN ESA certified disk(s) : false

ERROR [vcf_dm,######,####] [c.v.e.s.v.a.ValidateVsanEsaHclCompatibilityAction,dm-exec-31] Host ########## doesn't have vSAN ESA certified disk(s).

 

Environment

• VCF 9.x
• SDDC Manager 9.x
• vSAN 9.x

Cause

NVMe Devices certified for use with vSAN are connected through a tri-mode Controller on the Hosts listed in the Message shown above.

NVMe devices attached to Tri-mode controller are NOT a vSAN supported configuration.

vSAN only supports SAS/SATA Devices attached to a Tri-mode controller.
vSAN ESA supports dedicated NVMe Devices without supporting standalone or tri-mode Controller. 

Resolution

NVMe Devices used for vSAN are only supported directly connected to a PCIe slot on the bus. See for more Information: vSAN support of NVMe devices behind tri-mode controllers

Contact your Vendor to discuss appropriate Hardware change to include PCIe slots for the NVMe devices and then proceed with the following steps:

1.) Place vSAN Host in Maintenance Mode with "Ensure Accessibility"

2.) Remove any existing Disk Groups/Storage Pools from the vSAN Host by using the Disk Management 

vSAN 8.x: Remove Storage Pool Device

vSAN 8.x: Remove Devices/Disk Group

 

3.) Follow the procedure provided by the Hardware Vendor to reconfigure the vSAN Host to have the vSAN NVMe drives connected to the PCI bus

4.) Bring vSAN Host back online, keep it in Maintenance Mode

5.) Recreate the vSAN ESA Storage Pool by using the Disk Management

6.) Put the Host out of Maintenance Mode

7.) Repeat Steps 1-6 with the remaining vSAN Hosts in the Cluster

8.) Re-deploy VCF Installer

Additional Information

The Domainmanager.log on the VCF Installer can be searched for the Controller Model by:

cat /var/log/vmware/vcf/domainmanager | grep -i "deviceDisplayName"