How do you zone VMware RDM volumes to the 3PAR?

[StuartA46]

All:

We have ESX servers.  We normally just zone 1 TB "datastore" VLUNs to all of the ESX Servers, because they all "share" the storage.

We got our 1st request for VMware RDMs.  How do we zone them?

Apparently the VMware Instance will have HBA WWNs (virtual ones, but somehow real to the SAN switch).  We zone to the Virtual WWNs?  Is that how it's done?  If the ESX server "vmotion-s" the Instance to another ESX server, will the RDM zoning "move" the "zoning" to the new ESX server?  How does the ESX server "project" the virtual WWN to the SAN switch? 

    Stuart

[3ParDude]

Zoning is done at the 3Par port level.  So i would imagine your 3Par is already zoned to your hosts if you can already see storage presented from it.

What you need to do is create a new virtual volume on the 3Par and then export this to all the ESX hosts in the cluster.

[StuartA46]

So, you're saying that I zone the RDMs just like I would zone/mask/export the DataStores, to the ESX server WWNs, not to the Instance virtual WWNs?  Is that right.  I treat RDMs and DataStores the same?

[3ParDude · Accepted solution]

Yes from the storage side of things its identical.  Its from within Vsphere that you perform the steps that make it an RDM.