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
Fibre Channel” (page 42) for procedures on implementing and configuring the round-robin path
policy on ESX/ESXi 4.0 and later with an HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage.
• A path policy of "round-robin" is the preferred multipath implementation for ESX/ESXi 4.0
and later. For procedures on implementing and configuring the round-robin path policy on
ESX/ESXi 4.0 and later with an HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage, see “Configuring Round Robin
Multipathing on ESX 4.x or later for Fibre Channel” (page 42).
• A path policy of "fixed" and the preferred/active paths manually set to balance I/O load
evenly across all paths is the preferred multipath implementation for ESX 3.0 - 3.5.
◦ In the event the active path is detected as having failed or has been disabled either at
the fabric switch, or on the storage array, all ESX host I/O to the storage array continues
by failing over to a 'standby' path. When the ESX host detects that the preferred path
has been recovered or is enabled, I/O from the ESX host then resumes on the preferred
path -- assuming a preferred path policy had previously been set to that path.
◦ I/O from the ESX host should be manually distributed or balanced when two or more
paths exist to more than one HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage volume on the storage array.
Manually balancing the loads across available paths may improve I/O performance.
This path load balancing to the storage array is dependant on the number of I/Os that
are targeted for specific volumes on the storage array. Tuning I/Os to specific volumes
on specific paths to the storage array varies from configuration to configuration and is
totally dependant on the workload from the ESX host and the virtual machines to the
devices on the storage array.
Figure 18 (page 42) shows a LUN with five I/O paths in a FIXED I/O policy scheme. The path
marked Active (I/O) with the '*' in the Preferred column is the path chosen as preferred, and is
the path to which all I/O is currently assigned for the given LUN. The other paths are listed as
active, but are in 'standby' mode. The paths in active 'standby' mode will not be used for I/O
traffic for this LUN unless the preferred path fails.
Multipath Failover Considerations and I/O Load Balancing 41