SPM adapter for EMC® Symmetrix® VMAX®: Matrix support for automation of EMC storage operations via the HP Storage Provisioning Manager

Technical white paper | SPM Adapter for EMC Symmetrix VMAX

The storage administrator will have decided the appropriate degree of sharing for the EMC array (perhaps Matrix is using a

specific subset of director ports), and ensured appropriate physical connectivity from the Virtual Connect modules through

the SAN to the appropriate director ports. These ports need to be configured for the SPM adapter through the

EmcSymmetrixVMaxAdapter.exe.config file located at C:\Program Files (x86)\HP\Storage

Provisioning Manager\plugins\storage_adapters\ EMCSymmVMAX.

If individual ports are allowed from different directors, then administrator can configure this by specifying the individual

ports separated by a colon “:”, as below:

This configuration enables adapter to use the configured ports (FA-8E:1 and FA-9E:0) while presenting a volume to a host

and perform SAN zoning in a Brocade SAN environment.

The administrator can also specify one or director more ports as a list, each separated by a colon (“:”).

For example, if director 8E (with both port0 and port1 enabled) is allowed to be used by Matrix/SPM, then administrator can

configure this as below:

This configuration enables the adapter to use both 8E:0 and 8E:1 ports while presenting a volume to a host and/or

performing zoning in a Brocade SAN environment.

The default value for target ports is set to the empty string (implying all target ports):

The administrator should restrict this to the subset physically connected (or else the SPM adapter will present and zone to

all of the EMC ports on the appropriate fabric).

Note

The version of SPM included with the Matrix OE 7.3 release provides support for port group zoning, which can restrict zoning

to a set of ports defined as a group (rather than all ports on the fabric). See the HP Storage Provisioning Manager User

Guide and HP Matrix Operating Environment and HP Storage Provisioning Manager support for port groups: Storage controller

port load balancing using SPM white paper at www.hp.com/go/matrixoe/docs for details. Port groups work in conjunction

with the allowed target ports in the adapter configuration file. The storage administrator should carefully configure the

ports in the SPM port groups (in XML files) and in the adapter configuration file. If any port in the adapter configuration file is

not in a defined SPM port group, SPM will consider it to be a member of a port group containing only that port. SPM will

choose the port group containing the least used port, which could be an explicitly defined port group from the port group

configuration file or a port group implicitly constructed by SPM containing a single port not mentioned in the port group

configuration file. If a define SPM port group contains additional EMC ports which are not configured in the adapter

configuration file then SPM will ignore those additional ports while zoning.

The above assumes equal use of all the allowed ports. If HP-UX is being used, then it is necessary to ensure Matrix requests

for volumes with an HP-UX host mode are fulfilled using EMC ports enabled with Volume Set Addressing (VSA) flag enabled

(see the next document section on Setting Flags on EMC Director Ports). If all ports for use by Matrix/SPM support VSA and

all requests will be for HP-UX host mode, then the above approach will work. If some requests are for HP-UX host mode

and some are for other host modes (Windows, Linux) which cannot be fulfilled using ports with VSA enabled, then it is

necessary to ensure suitable ports are used (see the document section on Using Suitable EMC Ports for Provisioning).

Note

SPM operations result from the manual or automated creation of a storage pool entry for fulfillment through SPM or

provisioning a logical server manually or automatically from a Matrix infrastructure orchestration service template.

Setting Flags on EMC Director Ports

The EMC director ports that are assigned for use by SPM adapter should have fiber channel (FC) cable connections to a SAN

switch and the ACLX flag on each of these ports should have been enabled.

The Volume Set Addressing (VSA) flag should be enabled on the ports to support hosts running HP-UX. To support

Windows, Linux, VMware, or other operating systems the VSA flag must be disabled on the ports. The following Using

Suitable EMC ports for Provisioning section provides information on pure and mixed mode environments (e.g., all ports VSA

or some ports with VSA enabled and some ports with it disabled).