Technical data

DATA CENTER TECHNICAL BRIEF
INTRODUCTION
This document is a guide to configuring Microsoft
®
Hyper-V using NPIV with a Brocade
®
Fibre Channel to PCIe Host
Bus Adapter (HBA). It will help you understand what you need to consider before deploying this solution and how to
implement and diagnose NPIV with Hyper-V. It is designed for Windows System Administrators and Storage
Administrators. A basic understanding of how to use Windows, Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager
(SCVMM), Fibre Channel (FC) storage, and zoning is assumed.
About NPIV
NPIV stands for N_Port ID Virtulization. It provides a simple, high-availability capability. NPIV uses Host Bus
Adapter (HBA) technology, which creates virtual HBA ports on hosts by abstracting the underlying physical
port. This support enables a single physical Fibre Channel HBA port to function as multiple logical ports,
each with its own identity. Each virtual machine can then attach to its own virtual HBA port and be
independently zoned to a distinct and dedicated World Wide Port Name (WWPN).
(http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc
764269.aspx))
For more information about NPIV and HBA technology, refer to your HBA vendor documentation.
There are thr
ee options for High Availability (HA) in your Storage Area Network (SAN):
 Microsoft Clustering Services (MCS)
 Virtual Disk Service (VDS)
 NPIV
Microsoft SCVMM determines how to migrate a machine based on the following criteria:
 If Clustering is enabled, it uses MCS to migrate the guest and re-configure the clustering storage.
 If Clustering is not enabled, it uses VDS to re-configure the storage to re-map that LUN to the new World
Wide Name (WWN) of the target machine.
 If neither Clustering nor VDS is enabled, it uses NPIV to migrate the guest.
 If none of these options is available, it copies the data across the LAN.
Using Microsoft Clustering Service with Hyper-V requires Windows 2008 Enterprise Edition. With NPIV, you
can get nearly the same level of availability, but you can use Windows 2008 Standard. The advantage to
Clustering is the automatic level of HA; without it, you must migrate a guest manually. Using NPIV allows for
a SAN migration that is much quicker than a LAN-based migration. Virtual Disk Service provides the same
capability.
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