P2000 VAAI driver install for ESXi 4.1

[kkpro]

Hi, I installed VAAI driver for our ESXi 4.1 with P2000G3 MSA Array, using vihostupdate.pl script through CLI. I'm a bit confusing, is that's enough, because HP's technical paper about VAAI on P2000 says:

"Is VAAI enabled on ESX/ESXi?
By default, primitives like Full Copy and Block Zero are not enabled upon installation and must be enabled in the
advanced settings on the ESX/ESXi server. (Configuration Advanced Settings). "

So, do I need to enable it ?

[Jags_21]

Hi,

What Actually does VAAI do?

VAAI helps reduce the storage bandwidth consumed by an ESX/ESXi host and improves datacenter scalability. Storage operations like virtual machine provisioning, Storage vMotion, creation of virtual disks, and so on consumes less CPU, memory, and fabric bandwidth when using the P2000 G3 array running firmware which includes the VAAI component (Firmware: T230 or above).

So VAAI basically an API storage partner that can leverage to enhance performance of virtual machine (VM) management operations by delegating these operations to the storage array.

The primitives are:

• Full Copy or Hardware Assisted Move
• Block Zeroing or Hardware Assisted Zeroing
• Hardware Assisted Locking or Atomic Test and Set (ATS)

Note: These primitives are with perspective to HP P2000 G3 Storage Array from T230 firmware and above.

You can find the more details in the P2000 G3 Technical technical Paper which is self explanatory

Click here for HP P2000 G3 Technical technical Paper.

Again does it require to enable: It depends on each customer environment.

VAAI hardware offload cannot be used with below conditions;

• The source and destination VMFS volumes have different block sizes.
• The source file type is RDM and the destination file type is non-RDM (regular file) .
• The source VMDK type is eagerzeroedthick and the destination VMDK type is thin.
• The source or destination VMDK is any sort of sparse or hosted format.
• Cloning a Virtual Machine that has snapshots (or doing a View replica or recompose), since this process involves consolidating the snapshots into the virtual disks of the target Virtual Machine. 
• The logical address and/or transfer length in the requested operation are not aligned to the minimum alignment required by the storage device (all datastores created with the vSphere Client are aligned automatically).
• The VMFS datastore has multiple LUNs/extents spread across different arrays.

Thanks,

Jagadish

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[kkpro]

Hi Jagadish,

No, my question is not "do I need VAAI or not ?". My question is like "I need VAAI, but not sure how to make it work, I installed a drvier, do I need something more for enabling VAAI" ?

[Jags_21 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Once the driver installed it should be enabled by default, below is the options where you can enable or disable:

1. In the vSphere Client inventory panel, select the host.
2. Click the Configuration tab, and click Advanced Settings under Software.
3. Check that these options are set to 1 (enabled):
   DataMover.HardwareAcceleratedMove
   DataMover.HardwareAcceleratedInit
   VMFS3.HardwareAcceleratedLocking
4. To Disable set the options back to 0 (disable)

Find the images attached for reference:

Figure -1 Datamover:

Figure 2 - VMFS3:

from console you can run the below command:

# esxcfg-advcfg -g /DataMover/HardwareAcceleratedMove
# esxcfg-advcfg -g /DataMover/HardwareAcceleratedInit

# esxcfg-advcfg -g /VMFS3/HardwareAcceleratedLocking

To determine if it is functioning the easiest way is select an ESX/ESXi host and click on Configuration | Storage Adapters and select your HBA adapter. As you can see in Figure. 3, examine the last column under the heading Hardware Acceleration. If you see "Supported," that means VAAI is functioning for that particular datastore.

Figure - 3 VAAI Supported:

I believe this should give the complete details on Storage API's

Thanks,

Jagadish

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For HP Guided Troubleshooting; http://www.hp.com/support/hpgt

[Jags_21]

Hi,

Small correction the below command will give the status if it is enabled or not

# esxcfg-advcfg -g /DataMover/HardwareAcceleratedMove
# esxcfg-advcfg -g /DataMover/HardwareAcceleratedInit

# esxcfg-advcfg -g /VMFS3/HardwareAcceleratedLocking

to enable from the console run the below command and to disable replace 1 with 0

# esxcfg-advcfg -s 1 /DataMover/HardwareAcceleratedMove
# esxcfg-advcfg -s 1 /DataMover/HardwareAcceleratedInit

# esxcfg-advcfg -s 1 /VMFS3/HardwareAcceleratedLocking

Thanks,

Jagadish