SRM Test Recovery LUNs have a different path selection policy than DR site target LUNs

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi
• VMware Site Recovery Manager

Issue/Introduction

An SRM deployment leverages array based replication. 

On completeing a Site Recovery Manager (SRM) Test Recovery, the recovered LUNs on the DR site have a different mulitpathing policy than the target LUNs (i.e. the LUNs replicated to) which are recovered during a planned migration/disaster recovery.

For example, the target LUNs may have a round robin path selection pathing policy, whereas the Test Recovery LUNs may have a fixed path selection pathing policy.

Environment

Site Recovery Manager (all versions)
VMware vSphere ESXi (all versions)

Cause

The storage array advertises devices to ESXI with specific make and model information.

ESXi assigns an SATP claim rule to each device presented to it based on this information. In turn, the assigned SATP claim rule (often a vendor specific rule), determines the multipathing policy for the device.

An SRM Test Recovery LUN is a snapshot of a DR site replica LUN. The storage array may, by design, present these snapshot LUNs with different make and model information, causing them to be claimed by ESXi using a different SATP rule with a different multipathing policy.

Resolution

Engage your storage vendor to have them confirm whether test recovery LUNs are presented differently than the target LUNs and the multipathing policy they are expected to have.