Deployment Guide

48 Dell Networking FC Flex IOM: Deployment of FCoE with Dell FC Flex IOM, Brocade FC switches,
and Dell Compellent Storage Array
Deployment/Configuration Guide
Figure 37 Remote storage on Compellent as seen in Windows as drive ‘E:’
Compellent SC8000 Load Balancing Policy Options:
The Compellent SC8000 controller uses Microsoft Multipath I/O (MPIO) for load balancing over ports.
Microsoft MPIO is a framework that allows administrators to configure load balancing and failover
processes for FC and iSCSI connected storage devices. You can configure load balancing to use up to
32 independent paths from the connected storage devices. The MPIO framework uses Device Specific
Modules (DSM) to allow path configuration. For Windows Server 2008 and above, Microsoft provides a
built-in generic Microsoft DSM (MSDSM) and it should be used. For Windows Server 2003 only, Dell
Compellent provides a DSM.
A load balance policy is used to determine which path is used to process I/O. Once the Compellent
volume has been created and mapped accordingly, as will be demonstrated shortly, to see the selected
MPIO policy in Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise navigate to Start > Administrative Tools >
Computer Management. On the left-hand pane navigate to Computer Management > Storage > Disk
Management and right click the disk created on the Compellent storage array and select Properties.
Next, select the Hardware tab, click the Properties button at the bottom right, and select the MPIO tab.
Figure 38 below displays what you should see. Note, for Windows Server 2008, the default MPIO Policy
is Round Robin.
The Dell Compellent SC8000 will only support Round Robin or Fail Over Only MPIO policies. The other