Best Practices Dell EMC PowerVault ME4 Series and VMware vSphere Abstract This document provides best practices for deploying VMware® vSphere® with Dell EMC™ PowerVault™ ME4 Series storage. It includes configuration recommendations for vSphere hosts to achieve an optimal combination of performance and resiliency.
Revisions Revisions Date Description September 2018 Initial release March 2020 Minor revisions October 2020 Adjusted claim rules Acknowledgments Author: Darin Schmitz The information in this publication is provided “as is.” Dell Inc. makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the information in this publication, and specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
Table of contents Table of contents Revisions.............................................................................................................................................................................2 Acknowledgments ...............................................................................................................................................................2 Table of contents ................................................................................................
Table of contents 7.1 VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration ...................................................................................................21 7.1.1 Full copy ...........................................................................................................................................................21 7.1.2 Block zeroing ....................................................................................................................................................
Executive summary Executive summary This document provides best practices for VMware® vSphere® when using a Dell EMC™ PowerVault™ ME4 Series storage array. It does not include sizing, performance, or design guidance, but it provides information about the features and benefits of using ME4 Series arrays for VMware vSphere environments. VMware vSphere is an extremely robust, scalable, enterprise-class hypervisor.
Introduction 1 Introduction The PowerVault ME4 Series is next-generation, entry-level storage that is purpose-built and optimized for SAN and DAS virtualized workloads. Available in 2U or dense 5U base systems, the low-cost ME4 Series simplifies the challenges of server capacity expansion and small-scale SAN consolidation with up to 336 drives or 4 PB capacity.
ME4 Series features 2 ME4 Series features Although the ME4 Series is targeted at the entry level of the SAN market, it contains many advanced and enterprise-class features detailed in the following sections. It is recommended that both the storage administrator and the VMware administrator have a solid understanding of how these storage features can benefit the vSphere environment prior to deployment.
ME4 Series features 2.2.1 Automated tiered storage Automated tiered storage (ATS) automatically moves data residing in one class of disks to a more appropriate class of disks based on data access patterns, with no manual configuration necessary. Frequently accessed, hot data can move to disks with higher performance, while infrequently accessed, cool data can move to disks with lower performance and lower costs.
ME4 Series features operating/redundancy mode is shown as active/active ULP. ULP uses the Asymmetric Logical Unit Access (ALUA) extensions to negotiate paths with the ALUA-aware operating systems. If the hosts are not ALUAaware, all paths are treated as equal even though some paths might have better latency than others. vSphere ESXi is an ALUA aware operating system, and no additional configuration is required.
Connectivity considerations 3 Connectivity considerations ME4 Series storage supports and is certified with VMware vSphere for server connectivity with iSCSI (1 Gb and 10 Gb), Fibre Channel (8 Gb and 16 Gb, direct-attached and SAN-attached), and direct-attached SAS. While the PowerVault ME4012 or ME4024 array can be configured with a single controller, for maximum storage availability and performance, it is a best practice to use dual controller configurations.
Connectivity considerations 3.2 SAN-attached storage ME4 Series arrays support SAN-attached Fibre Channel (8 Gb and 16 Gb) and iSCSI (10 Gb and 1 Gb) connectivity. A switch-attached solution (or SAN) places a Fibre Channel or Ethernet switch between the servers and the controller enclosures within the storage system. Using switches, a SAN shares a storage system among multiple servers reducing the number of storage systems required for a particular environment.
Connectivity considerations 3.2.1 iSCSI fabric settings This section details recommended and required settings when creating an iSCSI-based SAN. Note: 1 Gb iSCSI is supported only with the 10GBaseT controller and not the converged network controller. 3.2.1.1 Flow control settings Ethernet flow control is a mechanism for temporarily pausing data transmission when data is being transmitted faster than its target port can accept the data.
Connectivity considerations Zoning Fibre Channel switches for vSphere ESXi hosts is essentially no different than zoning any other hosts to the ME4 Series array. Zoning rules and recommendations: • • • The ME4 Series array and ESXi hosts should be connected to two different Fibre Channel switches (fabrics) for high availability and redundancy. Name zoning using WWNs is recommended. When defining the zones, it is a best practice to use single-initiator (host port), multiple-target (ME4 ports) zones.
Host bus adapters 4 Host bus adapters This section provides host bus adapter (HBA) information for SAS, Fibre Channel, and iSCSI cards that provide the most effective communication between the server and the ME4 Series array. 4.1 Fibre Channel and SAS HBAs To obtain drivers for the Fibre Channel or 12 Gb SAS HBAs shipped in 13th-generation and 14th-generation Dell EMC PowerEdge™ servers, download the Dell-customized ESXi embedded ISO image from Dell Support.
ME4 Series array settings 5 ME4 Series array settings This section includes ME4 Series array settings that ensure a smooth and consistent data-center environment. 5.1 Missing LUN Response The setting for Missing LUN Response can be found in ME Storage Manager under Action > Advanced Settings > Cache. The default setting of Illegal Request is compatible with a VMware vSphere environment and should not be changed.
ME4 Series array settings 5.3 Log file timestamps Debugging and troubleshooting any data-center issue involves reviewing multiple log files from different sources. Tracking an issue across multiple log files, whether manually of through a third-party log file aggregator, depends upon accurate timestamp information. Ensure that the various components that make up the vSphere environment use the same NTP time source and time zone off set.
VMware vSphere settings 6 VMware vSphere settings The following configuration settings are recommended for the VMware ESXi™ hosts. 6.1 Recommended iSCSI vSwitch configuration To configure the VMware iSCSI software initiator for multipathing, see the VMware articles, Configuring Software iSCSI Adapter and Setting Up iSCSI Network located at VMware Docs.
VMware vSphere settings 6.2 Recommended multipathing (MPIO) settings Block storage (iSCSI, FC, or SAS to vSphere hosts from the ME4 Series array) has the native path selection policy (PSP) of most recently used (MRU) applied by default. If the vSphere hosts are connected to the ME4 Series array through SAN fabrics that follow the best practices as described in section 3, Connectivity considerations, multiple paths will be presented to each volume.
VMware vSphere settings 6.3 ESXi iSCSI setting: delayed ACK Delayed ACK is a TCP/IP method of allowing segment acknowledgments to transport upon each other or on other data that is passed over a connection with the goal of reducing I/O overhead. One side effect of delayed ACK is that if the pipeline is not filled, acknowledgment of the data is delayed. This can be seen as higher latency during lower I/O periods. Latency is measured from the time data is sent to when the acknowledgment is received.
VMware vSphere settings to a volume indicating that too many VMs may reside on that datastore. It is also important to consider the recovery point objective and recovery time objective of backups and replication for business continuity and recovery.
VMware integrations 7 VMware integrations The ME4 Series array has several integrations and touchpoints with the VMware vSphere ecosystem. Like the vSphere Web Client plug-in, some are more visible then others, such as the VAAI primitives in the firmware. However, a clear understanding of the functionality and benefits they provide is vital to efficient virtual-environment design.
VMware integrations 7.1.3 Hardware-assisted locking To protect Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) metadata, the hardware-assisted locking primitive provides a more granular method than SCSI reservations. Previously, whenever a virtual machine powered on, powered off, grew a thin provisioned virtual disk, or was moved with vMotion to another host, a SCSI reservation lock would be issued by the ESXi host to the underlying volume of the datastore.
VMware integrations Better utilization of storage assets: The storage environment no longer needs to be oversized to cover occasional I/O peaks. Rather, these peaks are leveled out by SIOC. SIOC works by monitoring the I/O latency of a datastore. When that latency exceeds the threshold that has been set (30 ms by default), SIOC will engage and enforce the assigned disk shares.
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