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Re: VMware vSphere vStorage API and HP EVA

 
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Niels Vejrup Pedersen
Respected Contributor

VMware vSphere vStorage API and HP EVA

Hi,

In vSphere its possible for manufactures to add their own multipathing drivers, like we know from the MPIO DSM to windows boxes.

It's always been a pain to manually balance paths in vmware - so this will hopefully work this issue out.

I've seen other vendors announce support for these things to vSphere, but nothing from HP.. e.g EMC PowerPath for vSphere.

Do anyone have some information they could share about what HP intends to supply for vSphere as a upgrade to the standard Native MultiPathing software.

Regards,
18 REPLIES 18
Patrick Terlisten
Honored Contributor
Solution

Re: VMware vSphere vStorage API and HP EVA

Hello,

AFAIK is there nothing like MPIO planned. PowerPath is a "present" to VMware, an EMC division. Which type of multipathing policy do you use?

Best regards,
Patrick
Best regards,
Patrick
Niels Vejrup Pedersen
Respected Contributor

Re: VMware vSphere vStorage API and HP EVA

Hi Patrick,

We are currently using the NMP mode.

But with no intelligence in the driver we are having a hard time doing manual path selection on the environments.

Patrick Terlisten
Honored Contributor

Re: VMware vSphere vStorage API and HP EVA

Hello Niels,

I can only repeat: AFAIK is nothing planned, so we all need to load-balance the path ourself. :(

Best regards,
Patrick
Best regards,
Patrick
shIVinator.
Valued Contributor

Re: VMware vSphere vStorage API and HP EVA

I feel your pain. Balancing LUNs across all paths is very tedious. The easiest way that I have to do it is to set the path while you SSH to the ESX server.

This command will set the path:
esxcfg-mpath --preferred --lun=vmhba2:0:1 --path=vmhba3:0:3

To find out what paths are available:
esxcfg-mpath -l

To see your LUNs:
esxcfg-vmhbadevs

I have attached a doc that I used for one of my clusters. Once you create a file like this, save it as a .sh and then run it on all of your ESX servers in the cluster.

Make sure you rescan the HBAs after:
esxcfg-rescan vmhba2

Duane

Niels Vejrup Pedersen
Respected Contributor

Re: VMware vSphere vStorage API and HP EVA

Update:

I spoke to some EVA guys at technology forum in vegas, and to my knowledge there is a psp plugin in the beta stages for the EVA's.

I'm looking forward to that!

Regards,
Patrick Terlisten
Honored Contributor

Re: VMware vSphere vStorage API and HP EVA

Hello,

mmmhh... that would be nice.

Best regards,
Patrick
Best regards,
Patrick
Uwe Zessin
Honored Contributor

Re: VMware vSphere vStorage API and HP EVA

What (real) advantages does PowerPath/VE give over the native out-of-the-box capabilities?
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Patrick Terlisten
Honored Contributor

Re: VMware vSphere vStorage API and HP EVA

Hello,

I think most of the users want an automatic load balancing over all available paths. Now they must load balance it manual.

And btw: VMware is an EMC division... THATS the main cause why powerpath is supported.

Best regards,
Patrick
Best regards,
Patrick
Uwe Zessin
Honored Contributor

Re: VMware vSphere vStorage API and HP EVA

I've been in a presentation yesterday and the speaker just turned on round-robin through the VI-Client. ESX4 had already recognized the EVA as an ALUA array. We ran out of time, but he assured us that ESX4 would switch to and balance on the "performance optiomized" paths for a virtual disks within a few minutes.

Of course, EMC was mentioned that the recomendation from them to switch of PP/VE when the smallest sign of a problem was visible.
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