The other day I had someone ask if 3PAR was certified for vMSC with vSphere 5.5. So naturally I went to the VMware HCL and checked by selecting ESXi 5.5 for the version, then HP as the vendor and then the FC Metro Cluster Storage as the array test configuration.
When I searched I got back 5 results which made me think it was certified for vMSC in ESXi 5.5. However after checking with the product teams they said a full storage re-certification was required for ESXi 5.5 and while the arrays were certified for ESXi 5.5, separate testing still needed to be done for vMSC with ESXi 5.5. As a result despite the HCL showing results back for vMSC and ESXi 5.5, the arrays are actually not certified for vMSC with ESXi 5.5. Note this behavior is true for any partner you select, when I selected EMC and FC-SVD Metro Cluster Storage it returned one result for ESXi 5.5 just like it would if you select ESXi 5.1 U1.
After looking further at the HCL you can tell this because the FC Metro Cluster Storage entry is missing in the OS Release Details for ESXi 5.5.
If you switch the version to ESXi 5.1 Update 1 you’ll see the entry indicating it is certified for vMSC.
After checking further with VMware it appears that there was no Day 0 support for vMSC in vSphere 5.5 which means that there are no arrays which are certified for vMSC with vSphere 5.5. The reason for this is that VMware has not yet completed what is needed for vMSC re-certification testing with vSphere 5.5. They do not expect to have this until Nov-Dec at which time partners can begin the re-certification process for vSphere 5.5. As a result you probably will not see any arrays actually certified for vMSC with vSphere 5.5 until next year.
