Windows 2008 R2 Cluster + VMWare solution

Are you using an rdm for the mscs disks? I believe that is best practice

MSCS disks. RDM is not allowed in our environment since VMFS was introduced in VMWare. Basically whenever i try to use MSCS to add storage (disks carved out from LUN and attached to VMs) they are being added but cannot bring them online. have you looked at the log file i attached?

Here is some info regarding your error

Environment: OS: Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Application SW: Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS) Product: EMC Symmetrix DMX-3 Symptom 1 Cluster Validation fails with error: Failed to Register PR key for cluster disk 0 from node <nodename> status 1 Symptom 2 The persistent reserve test fails even though all of the cluster disks

Symptom 1 Cause The vcmdb is also visible to both hosts and the validation test chooses this disk to test persistent reservations. The vcmdb does not have SCSI-3 Persistent Reserve enabled by default.

Symptom 1 Fix The vcmdb must be made invisible to disk management. This can be done in one of the following ways.

From a host perspective, this can be accomplished by right-clicking the disk in Device Manager and selecting disable. This can also be done through Disk Manager by right-clicking on the VCM device, choose Properties > then select the Drivers tab > and click Disable for this device. From a Symmetrix perspective, this can be accomplished by unmapping the vcmdb from the FA port. Note that this will affect all hosts attached to this port.

Symptom 2 Cause

For Windows 2008, you need the following director bits set: Common Serial Number (C), Enable Auto Negotiation (EAN), Enable Point-to-point (PP), Host SCSI Compliance 2007 (OS2007), SCSI-3 SPC-2 Compliance (SPC-2), Unique World Wide Name (UWN) For Windows 2008 failover clusters, you need the director bit SCSI-3 compliance (SC3), and the "Persistent Reservation" (PER) bit must be enabled on each Symmetrix DMX device used.

Symptom 2 Fix

How to set the SCSI3 Persistent reservation bit

Host: Open Systems OS: Unix OS: Microsoft Windows

Fact SCSI3 persistent reservation it is also known as the PER bit Fact Persistent Reservations - PER flag

Fix 1. Create command (text) file with any text editor with syntax:

set device xxx attribute=SCSI3_persist_reserv; (xxx=Symmetrix device number)

2. Run the "symconfigure" command with the "prepare" option. This will check the syntax of the command file and verify whether the Symmetrix is prepared to handle the requested configuration change.

symconfigure -sid yyy -f commandfilename prepare (yyy=symm serial number)

3. Run the "symconfigure" command with the "commit" option to actually execute the change in the Symmetrix.

symconfigure -sid yyy -f commandfilename commit

Does your SAN support SCSI3 Persistent reservations?

It's normal for the Quroum disk to be on the SAN (and shared between both Cluster Nodes).

our quorum is a Shared folder on a third server and not a disk.

why is it not on the SAN?

went with mirroring