MultiPath Plugin for vSphere

[AMP_WSP]

Anyone know whether a MPP for vSphere is in development? I was hoping for for one to be released with Lefthand OS 10. This would greatly improve the resiliance and performance of our multi site cluster

[AMP_WSP]

and rather than me typing it all out, here's the full reason why we need this

http://www.virtuallifestyle.nl/2011/11/hp-p4000-multi-site-san-and-vmware-vsphere-watch-out/

[Emilo]

Saniq has supported Multi Path for vmware since 8.0 I believe. The limitation is inherent with vmware and it not being able to support routing. You can control this by using site preference if you are using a muliti site cluster.  You setup the multi path in vmare and you control the access with site preference in saniq.

[AMP_WSP]

Emilo, thanks but this limitation is something HP could fix.The default MPP provided by VMware doesn't support true multipath in the same way as HP DISM for MPIO does on windows servers, as mentioned on the link I gave. This limitation wouldn't be an issue if HP produced a MPP for Lefthand in much the same way as NetApp do for their hardware

read these articles for more info before replying

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-4-esxi-installable-vcenter/index.jsp?topic=/com.vmware.vsphere.esxi_server_config.doc_41/esx_san_config/common/c_vmware_pluggable_storage_architecture.html

http://storageviews.com/?p=155

[Emilo]

Very good stuff thank for those posts!!

I dont think that it is 10.0 oherwise it would be big news.

[AMP_WSP]

So, anyone else know whether this is being worked on or in the pipeline?

[balblas]

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@Emilo wrote:

You setup the multi path in vmare and you control the access with site preference in saniq.

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The problem is that although HP's documentation makes you believe using site preference in SANiQ solves this issue in a multi-site, it does not. We have a multi-site setup and tried one VIF (in a subnet spanning both sites) and 2 VIFs (in different dedicated subnets for each site). We also created sites and moved the storage nodes and the VMware hosts in the correct sites. In all configurations, VMware hosts setup an iSCSI session to whatever storage node is the controlling node of the volume at that point, regardless of what site that storage node is in. So you end up with hosts connecting to remote storage nodes, which is not something you want.

BTW, you can route iSCSI sessions in VMware, although lot's of people think you can't. We're using hardware iSCSI HBAs, which support routing, but VMware iSCSI software iSCSI initiator can route as well.