Heads Up! If running VSA 5.1, you do not need VSA 5.1.1

Folks,

This is currently not very clear in the release notes, but if you are already running vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) version 5.1, you do not need to update to VSA 5.1.1. This is not needed, nor is it supported.

VSA 5.1.1 focuses solely on fixing issues found during the upgrade from VSA version 1.0.  If you have successfully upgraded to 5.1,  then you do not need to go to version 5.1.1.

You may run into some ‘strange’ upgrade issues trying to get from VSA 5.1 to VSA 5.1.1. For example, on 2 node clusters which use the VSA Cluster Service, the installer will abort during the upgrade with a “could not stop service” error. This is because the VSA cluster service on VSA 5.1 is called “VSAClusterService-5.1” but the installer tries to stop a service called “VSAClusterService”, which is the name of the VSA 1.0 Cluster Service.

So, just to repeat, if you are on VSA 5.1, you do not need VSA 5.1.1. We are working on getting this called out very clearly in the release notes.

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2 Replies to “Heads Up! If running VSA 5.1, you do not need VSA 5.1.1”

  1. Hi Cormac,

    I’m running a vSphere ICM 5.1 training course this week — one of the students asked a question about the esxi RAM size in a VSA cluster. He is thinking of using esxi’s with 192GB RAM each. He’s interested in the VSA as an option for storage. But the VSA 5.1.1 release notes say re RAM:

    “Memory
    o 6GB, minimum
    o 24GB, recommended
    o 72GB, maximum tested
    Note: You can have more than 72GB memory per ESXi host as there is no memory limitation for the VSA cluster.”

    What are your ideas about using the VSA with 192GB RAM per esxi? Would it be supported?

    Cheers

    Simon

    1. Yes – it shouldn’t be a problem to run the VSA cluster hosts with more memory so long as the amount of memory remains inside the limits for ESXi.

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