Data corruption issue using XCOPY in VAAI (VMware ESXI 5.xx) – IBM System Storage DCS3700, DS3512, DS3524

Source

RETAIN tip: H206954

Symptom

Data corruption was reported when using VMware ESXi 5.xx with VAAI hardware accelerated VMFS data movement enabled on IBM System Storage DS3500 and DCS3700 Storage Controllers.

The issue occurs when XCOPY is utilized to improve performance on the following VMware operations:

– Storage vMotion – VM cloning – VM snapshots

Any of the affected models and code levels (shown below) running with VMware ESXi 5.xx hosts with VAAI enabled and performing Storage vMotion, VM cloning, or VMware snapshots are likely exposed to undetected data corruption during these operations.

Affected configurations

The system may be any of the following IBM storage controllers:

– IBM System Storage DCS3700 Storage Subsystem, type 1818, any model – IBM System Storage DS3512, type 1746, any model – IBM System Storage DS3524, type 1746, any model

This tip is not option specific.

The 7.83.xx.xx firmware for the DS3500 and DCS3700 is affected.

Solution

This behavior will be corrected in a future release of the System Storage controller firmware version 7.8x.xx.xx.

The target date for this release is scheduled for fourth quarter 2012.

The file is or will be available by selecting the appropriate Product Group, type of System, Product name, Product machine type, and Operating system on IBM Support’s Fix Central web page, at the following URL:

http://www.ibm.com/support/fixcentral/

Workaround

Users potentially exposed to this issue should disable the portion of VAAI on the vSphere server that utilizes XCOPY on the storage controller, using the following ESXi command:

esxcfg-advcfg -s 0 /DataMover/HardwareAcceleratedMove

This disables only hardware acceleration of these VMware operations; the basic operations will still function properly. Once the hardware acceleration is disabled, the possibility of data corruption from this issue is eliminated.

Additional information

A modification to the storage controller firmware will be made to correct this issue.

Once the updated storage controller firmware version has been deployed, re-enable the hardware acceleration by using the following command:

esxcfg-advcfg -s 1 /DataMover/HardwareAcceleratedMove

Posted by rogerluethy on November 13, 2012

https://rogerluethy.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/data-corruption-issue-using-xcopy-in-vaai-vmware-esxi-5-xx-ibm-system-storage-dcs3700-ds3512-ds3524/