14 Responses

  1. Mike
    Mike at |

    Just ran into this but I disagree with "Compared to the benefits of virtualizing Oracle RAC this is a minor inconvenience." This would make this a non-starter for a production system as you lose your HA component just to add space.

    Reply
  2. Martin
    Martin at |

    There is a VMware KB article about that: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2078540

    Reply
  3. mike
    mike at |

    Do you have any experience backing up oracle RAC VM? I believe VMware has a limitation to run a snapshot in a share disk with multi-driver enable.

    Reply
  4. Lenny
    Lenny at |

    Can confirm … ESXi 5.5 Patch 2 Build 1892794 brought back this functionality. VMSupport confirmed to me that its absence was indeed a bug.

    Reply
  5. Davros
    Davros at |

    Hi, I really wish I could find the above simple. Unfortunatley I don't (I really struggle with PowerShell in comparison to BASH).

    Is there a simpler way than above? Say I already had the disks created, setup as independent etc. All I actually need to do is set the values:

    scsi1:0.sharing = multi-writer
    scsi1:1.sharing = multi-writer

    for a VM named env-test

    Can anyone help?

    Reply
  6. David
    David at |

    Thanks for the script Michael. BTW I was having an issue while running the first script with both vSphere 5.5 and 5.1 so thought of sharing my “quick fix” in case someone faces the same problem. I had to change the following line in order to get it working:

    [int64]$capcitykb = ($capacity * 1gb) / 1kb

    into this

    [int64]$capcitykb = $capacity * 1048576

    Not sure why but that did the trick for me.

    Cheers.

    Reply
  7. New method of enabling Multiwriter VMDK flag in vSphere 6.0 Update 1 (UI + API) | virtuallyGhetto

    […] For those interested in Automating the Multiwriter VMDK flag, I have created a quick PowerCLI sample called configureMultiwriterVMDK.ps1 which demonstrates this new vSphere API. You will need to specify the name of the VM as well as the label of the VMDK in which you wish to enable the Multiwriter VMDK flag (e.g. Hard disk 2). Below is an example of running the script. If you wish to add a new VMDK and enable the Multiwriter flag all at once, you can reference my script and using the following PowerCLI sample provided by Michael Webster here. […]

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