HP 3PAR VMware ESX Implementation Guide
Table Of Contents
- HP 3PAR VMware ESX Implementation Guide
- Contents
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Configuring the HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage for Fibre Channel
- 3 Configuring the HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage for iSCSI
- 4 Configuring the HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage for FCoE
- 5 Configuring the Host for a Fibre Channel Connection
- Installing the HBA and Drivers
- Installing Virtual Machine Guest Operating System
- Multipath Failover Considerations and I/O Load Balancing
- Performance Considerations for Multiple Host Configurations
- ESX/ESXi 4.1, ESXi 5.x Additional Feature Considerations
- Storage I/O Control
- vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI)
- HP 3PAR VAAI Plugin 1.1.1 for ESX 4.1
- HP 3PAR VAAI Plugin 2.2.0 for ESXi 5.x
- UNMAP (Space Reclaim) Storage Hardware Support for ESXi 5.x
- Out-of-Space Condition for ESX 4.1 and ESXi 5.x
- Additional New Primitives Support on ESXi 5.x
- VAAI and New Feature Support Table
- VAAI Plugin Verification
- 6 Configuring the Host as an FCoE Initiator Connecting to a FC target or an FCoE Target
- 7 Configuring the Host for an iSCSI Connection
- Setting Up the Switch, iSCSI Initiator, and iSCSI target ports
- Installing iSCSI on VMware ESX
- Installing Virtual Machine Guest Operating System
- Creating a VMkernel Port
- Configuring a Service Console Connection for the iSCSI Storage
- Configuring the VMware SW iSCSI Initiator
- iSCSI Failover Considerations and Multipath Load Balancing
- Performance Considerations for Multiple Host Configurations
- ESX/ESXi Additional Feature Considerations
- 8 Allocating Storage for Access by the ESX Host
- 9 Booting the VMware ESX Host from the HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage
- 10 Support and Other Resources
- 11 Documentation feedback
- A Appendix

For HP 3PAR OS 3.1.2 or later, using persona 11:
# showhost
Id Name Persona -WWN/iSCSI_Name- Port
0 ESXserver2 VMware 100000051EC33E00 --- 100000051EC33E01 ---
Use showhost -persona to show the persona name and Id relationship.
# showhost -persona
Id Name Persona_Id Persona_Name Persona_Caps
0 ESXserver1 6 Generic-legacy --
1 Esxserver2 11 VMware SubLun, ALUA
NOTE: If the persona is not correctly set, then use the sethost -persona <host
number> <hostname> command to correct the issue, where host number is 6 (for HP 3PAR
OS 3.1.1 or earlier) or 11 (recommended for HP 3PAR OS 3.1.2 or later).
A reboot of the ESX host is required if host persona is changed to 11. The host must be offline
or not connected in order to change the host persona from 6 to 11 or 11 to 6.
NOTE: See the HP 3PAR Command Line Interface Reference or the HP 3PAR Management Console
Users Guide for complete details on using the controlport, createhost, and showhost
commands.
These documents are available on the HP SC website:
HP Support Center
Target Port Limits and Specifications
To avoid overwhelming a target port and ensure continuous I/O operations, observe the following
limitations on a target port:
• For information available on host port per target port and max total host ports per array, refer
to the HP 3PAR Feature Availability Matrix documentation available on the HP Single Point
of Connectivity Knowledge (HP SPOCK) website:
HP SPOCK
• I/O queue depth on each HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage HBA model, as follows:
◦ QLogic CNA: 1748 (HP 3PAR StoreServ 10000 and HP 3PAR StoreServ 7000 systems
only)
• The I/O queues are shared among the connected host HBA ports on a first-come, first-served
basis.
• When all queues are in use and a host HBA port tries to initiate I/O, it receives a target queue
full response from the HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage port. This condition can result in erratic I/O
performance on each host. If this condition occurs, each host should be throttled so that it
cannot overrun the HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage port's queues when all hosts are delivering
their maximum number of I/O requests.
NOTE: When host ports can access multiple targets on fabric zones, the assigned target number
assigned by the host driver for each discovered target can change when the host is booted and
some targets are not present in the zone. This situation may change the device node access point
for devices during a host reboot. This issue can occur with any fabric-connected storage, and is
not specific to the HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage.
Target Port Limits and Specifications 35