11.0 HP StoreVirtual Storage VSA Installation and Configuration Guide (TA688-96141, September 2013)

Table 3 Minimum and maximum heap sizes (continued)
Maximum open VMDK
storage per hostMaximum heap valueMinimum heap valueVersion/build
25 TB256 MBN/AESXi 5.1 Build 914609
and earlier
60 TB640 MB256 MBESXi 5.1 Build 1065491
and later
Best practices for VSA for vSphere
• Configure the VSA for vSphere to start automatically and first, and before any other virtual
machines, when the vSphere Server on which it resides is started. This ensures that the VSA
for vSphere is brought back online as soon as possible to automatically re-join its cluster.
• Locate the VSA for vSphere on the same virtual switch as the VMkernel network used for iSCSI
traffic. This allows for a portion of iSCSI I/O to be served directly from the VSA for vSphere
to the iSCSI initiator without using a physical network.
• Locate the VSA for vSphere on a virtual switch that is separate from the VMkernel network
used for VMotion. This prevents VMotion traffic and VSA for vSphere I/O traffic from interfering
with each other and affecting performance.
• HP recommends installing vSphere Server on top of a redundant RAID configuration with a
RAID controller that has battery-backed cache enabled. Do not use RAID 0.
Unsupported configurations for VSA for vSphere
• Use of VMware snapshots, VMotion, High-Availability, Fault Tolerance, or Distributed Resource
Scheduler (DRS) on the VSA for vSphere itself.
• Use of any vSphere Server configuration that VMware does not support.
• Extending the data virtual disk(s), vSphere Server SCSI 1:x, of the VSA for vSphere while in
a cluster. Create additional disks and hot-add them instead. See “Create additional disks”
(page 24).
• Co-location of a VSA for vSphere and other virtual machines on the same physical platform
without reservations for the VSA for vSphere CPUs and memory in vSphere.
• Co-location of a VSA for vSphere and other virtual machines on the same VMFS datastore.
• Running VSA for vSphere’s on top of existing HP StoreVirtual Storage is not recommended.
Installing the HP StoreVirtual VSA for VMware vSphere
Download and install the StoreVirtual VSA for vSphere from the HP website:
www.hp.com/go/StoreVirtualDownloads
You can download the individual HP StoreVirtual VSA for VMware vSphere installer software, or
you can download the HP StoreVirtual VSA Software .iso components that you can mount or burn
to a DVD.
The installer for the VSA for vSphere includes a wizard that guides you through configuring the
virtual machine on the network, configuring virtual or physical hard drives, and powering on the
StoreVirtual VSA. The installer checks for the current HP StoreVirtual Centralized Management
Console, and then installs it, if it is not on the system.
12 Installing the HP StoreVirtual VSA for VMware vSphere