NetApp and VMware vSphere Storage Best Practices

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5 VMWARE NATIVE MULTIPATHING VMware ESX servers ship with a native multipathing solution for FC, FCoE, and iSCSI storage networks which enable high-performance data access and enhanced storage resiliency. With the release of ESX and ESXI 4.0, VMware has introduced the concept of a Pluggable Storage Architecture (PSA) that introduced several new concepts to its Native Multipathing (NMP). This section will review leveraging the Storage Array Type Plug-in (SATP) and the Path Selection Plug-in (PSP) along with the Asymmetric Logical Unit Access protocol (ALUA). 5.1 DEFAULT NMP SETTINGS Connecting a NetApp array to an ESX 4.0 server will result in the array being identified as an active-active storage controller, and the VMware native multipathing path selection policy will apply the "Fixed" multipathing policy. This configuration is identical to the default behavior with ESX 3.5. Figure 17) Default path selection policy. Deployments that leverage the "Fixed" multipathing policy will be required to manually identify and set the I/O to traverse the primary FC paths. In addition, users of this configuration will be required to manually load balance I/O across the primary paths. The NetApp EHU can automate this process for environments that prefer the NMP "Fixed" PSP. For deployments that prefer a complete "plug-n-play" architecture, enable ALUA on the NetApp storage array and configure the Round Robin PSP. 28
5.2 ENABLING ALUA NetApp and VMware support the Asymmetric Logical Unit Access protocol. ALUA allows for the autonegotiation of paths between SCSI target devices and target ports enabling dynamic reconfiguration. Enabling ALUA on NetApp initiator groups will result in a more dynamic, or plug-n-play like, architecture. Note: ALUA is supported with ESX and ESXI for FC and FCoE. Support for iSCSI is not required as iSCSI addresses this functionality natively within the protocol. ALUA is enabled on ESX 4.0 by default. To enable ALUA on a NetApp storage array, complete the following steps. 1 Log in to the NetApp console. 2 From the storage appliance console, run igroup set alua yes 3 Repeat step 2 for each LUN accessed by ESX. 4 Results can be verified by running igroup show -v Figure 18) Enable and verify ALUA settings. 29
Page 1 and 2: NETAPP TECHNICAL REPORT NetApp and
Page 3 and 4: 9 ETHERNET STORAGE NETWORKING BEST
Page 5 and 6: 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY NetApp® techno
Page 7 and 8: 2.2 STORAGE OVERVIEW: NAS DATASTORE
Page 9 and 10: 2.4 DATASTORE COMPARISON TABLES Dif
Page 11 and 12: 3 NETAPP FAS CONFIGURATION AND SETU
Page 13 and 14: LUNS LUNs are units of storage prov
Page 15 and 16: Figure 5) Identifying WWPN and IQN
Page 17 and 18: Figure 7) Assigning an igroup to a
Page 19 and 20: The default block size of a virtual
Page 21 and 22: CREATE MULTIPLE ISCSI VMKERNELS 1 O
Page 23 and 24: Figure 13) Verifying iSCSI to VMker
Page 25 and 26: Figure 15) Configuring iSCSI dynami
Page 27: Alternatively iSCSI restrictions ca
Page 31 and 32: Figure 20) Listing the active PSP t
Page 33 and 34: MANUALLY SETTING THE PSP FOR A LUN
Page 35 and 36: 6 NFS STORAGE RECOMMENDATIONS 6.1 I
Page 37 and 38: It is common for customers who run
Page 39 and 40: 6.5 CONNECTING NFS DATASTORES TO cr
Page 41 and 42: Figure 27) VMware Add Storage Wizar
Page 43 and 44: 7 THE NETAPP ESX HOST UTILITIES Net
Page 45 and 46: 8 FC AND FCOE STORAGE NETWORKING BE
Page 47 and 48: Figure 29) Configuring flow control
Page 49 and 50: 10 CONFIGURING ETHERNET STORAGE NET
Page 51 and 52: Figure 31) ESX vSwitch1 normal mode
Page 53 and 54: In vSwitch1, two VMkernel ports hav
Page 55 and 56: THE SINGLE-MODE DESIGN The single-m
Page 57 and 58: 10.5 VMKERNEL CONFIGURATION WITH MU
Page 59 and 60: 10.6 A STORAGE ARCHITECTURE WITH MU
Page 61 and 62: 11 INCREASING STORAGE UTILIZATION V
Page 63 and 64: Figure 43) Storage consumption afte
Page 65 and 66: Traditional provisioning preallocat
Page 67 and 68: Snapshot Auto Delete is a policy-ba
Page 69 and 70: 12.3 ENSURING OPTIMAL STORAGE PERFO
Page 71 and 72: 12.6 CORRECTIVE ACTIONS FOR VMS WIT
Page 73 and 74: CREATING A PROPERLY ALIGNED VMDK FO
Page 75 and 76: It should be noted that this design
Page 77 and 78: Figure 50) Configuring a global loc
Page 79 and 80:
RECOMMENDED LAYOUT OPTION 2: LOCATE
Page 81 and 82:
1 Open FilerView (http://filer/na_a
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Figure 54) Increasing the size of a
Page 85 and 86:
Figure 55) Deleting a VMDK from a V
Page 87 and 88:
15 DISK-BASED SNAPSHOT BACKUPS FOR
Page 89 and 90:
16 TECHNICAL REPORT SUMMARY VMware
Page 91 and 92:
lw== ESX SYSTEM SSH CONFIGURATION T
Page 93 and 94:
APPENDIX C: DOCUMENT REFERENCES VMW
Page 95 and 96:
MISCELLANEOUS REFERENCES Total Cost
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