Implementing NPV/NPIV on C-series MDS-9124 NX-OS 5.x

[Landrew09]

OK, I'm a moderately experienced SAN admin ;) so bear with me...
I have a need to enable NPIV to provide for virtualization of storage on a pair of EVAs. As I understand it, I will actually be enabling NPIV on the Core switches and NPIV on edge switches, but I’m less than clear on this. We have a relatively simple C-Series based SAN, a pair of MDS-9124 HP/Cisco switches as core switches, each connected via ISLs to three HP blade enclosures with MDS-9124e edge switches, two fabrics with multi path, etc. I've read over some of the documentation, but have concerns on the steps involved. HP support sees this as an ”implementation $” issue of course… It seems the switch config. is wiped during this process and then we simply upload the config. I have daily switch config backups so this is not a concern, reconfiguring ISL, etc. is a concern. I believe the ISL will have to be changed to “uplink” connections, though I’m not sure how this is done Does anyone have any experience with this type of implementation? Any tips or suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks

[Landrew09]

OK, I'm kind fo new to HP forums, but it has been several days and no one has responded to my question. Am I doind something wrong in posting this question, can anyone "see" this post?

[Johan Guldmyr]

Hey, I saw the post a couple of days ago but I didn't respond because I have not personally done this nor am I very experienced with the Cisco MDS (I'm more of Brocade guy). So I hoped somebody else would respond ;)

Giving it a shot anyway.

There are two things here.

NPIV and NPV.

NPV to me looks like Brocade's Access Gateway - see http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps5989/products_configuration_guide_chapter09186a008089f988.html

Meaning a whole switch is "NPIV":d, so that you don't lose a domain id - this is used in large fabrics where you may run into fibre channels maximum limit of hops or amount of domains - is this what you want to do?

Because it sounded a little like that when you talked about uplinks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPIV

I just read the link above a little closer and there is a screenshot in there from Fabric Manager - where you have the option to change status of npiv to enabled.

So, I think you want to make a port npiv capable - allowing several VMs log on from the same N_port.

I think all you need to do is to enable NPIV on that port - do that magic in Fabric Manager (or probably possible via CLI as well).

See this for a little more info:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps5989/products_command_reference_chapter09186a00805fae15.html#wp1248799