I recently started rolling out the latest VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1 Express Patch 1 (9.1.0.0100) into my lab environment, and everything had been going quite smoothly. After successfully upgrading vCenter Server and NSX earlier this morning, I moved on to my ESX hosts. Since I always run the pre-checks before kicking off an upgrade, I immediately noticed the following error message, which prevented me from proceeding further within SDDC Manager:
vSAN health test 'NVMe device is VMware certified' reported an issue for cluster 'VCF-Mgmt-Cluster'. Detailed error message: The NVMe device is not listed in the VMware Compatibility Guide (VCG).
I immediately recognized the error message and the solution, especially having spent far too much time experimenting with NVMe devices that are NOT on the vSAN ESA BCG in my lab environment. 😅
Note: This workaround is NOT required if you are using supported NVMe devices for vSAN ESA
Step 1 - Apply the vSAN ESA Hardware Mock NVMe workaround to all of your physical ESX hosts (applies to Nested ESX too). While the original solution was to workaround the ability for VCF Installer and/or SDDC Manager to commission ESX hosts using non-supported NVMe Devices for vSAN ESA, this is also now required for ESX upgrades using vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM) as it performs vSAN Healthcheck as part of its validation workflow.
- Option 1 (Persisted): Install the vSAN ESA Hardware Mock NVMe VIB/Offline Bundle, which will require you to lower the ESX software acceptance level to CommunitySupported before being allowed to install the VIB/Offline BUndle
- Option 2 (Non-Persisted): Copy the stress.json to /usr/lib/vmware/vsan/perf/stress.json (file will not persist upon reboot) and restart the vSAN Management Service by running /etc/init.d/vsanmgmtd restart
Step 2 - Silence the vSAN Health Check for NVMe device by selecting your vSphere Cluster and navigate to Monitor->vSAN->vSAN Health and click on the Silence Alert
Step 3 - Re-run the ESX upgrade pre-check and you should no longer see the vSAN NVMe device error, which will allow you to proceed with upgrading your ESX hosts.
Thanks for the comment!