DSM MPIO within a Windows VM?

[Paul Hutchings]

Do any of you have the DSM MPIO installed within a Windows Virtual Machine please?

Looking at doing VSS aware snapshots of Exchange and SQL which means assigning volumes directly to the MS iSCSI initiator which raises the question of whether to use MPIO at all (IO shouldn't be significant except during a backup), and if so whether to use the MS MPIO or the HP MPIO.

I have a similar dilemma with the NTFS LUNs for our main file server, though as VSS is less of an issue that's more a case of Windows iSCSI vs. RAW LUNs via ESX.

Thanks,
Paul

[Dave Finch · Accepted solution]

Paul,

You should install the HP P4000 MPIO from the Windows Solution pack CD. See the white paper for best practices for configuring the HP P4000s with Windows: http://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/GetDocument.aspx?docname=4AA2-5502ENW&doctype=white paper&doclang=EN_US&searchquery=keywords=(OR) p4000 lefthand &cc=us&lc=en. It's available in the Resource Library: http://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/erl.aspx?keywords=p4000+lefthand&logic=OR&numberitems=25&query=yes.

You may also want to take a look at the P4000 Support Resource Guide if you're new to the P4000 SANs: http://www.hp.com/go/P4000Support. HP has done a tremendous job of spreading the support resources all over Creation. Note that this guide still refers to the LeftHand HealthCheck and Service Console applications. These are being replaced by HP Insight Remote Support.

Good luck with the VSS snapshots! I'm having a bit of trouble with Exchange 2010 and app managed snapshots myself.

Dave

[Paul Hutchings]

Appreciate the reply Dave, my query was a more about the "It's a virtual machine not a physical server, should I treat DSM MPIO any differently?" though, as I've conflicting opinions where vSphere is involved with some saying just use the providers DSM and others saying "Use only Microsoft's MPIO".

[Dave Finch]

Paul,

VMs that connect directly via the MS iSCSI initiator should be treated the same as physical machines. I've run into problems, though, with this configuration when doing disaster recovery testing. In our first test, the DR site's VMs connected to the production site's SAN volumes. If this applies to you, take steps to prevent connections from the DR site to the iSCSI network. For this reason, I prefer using RDM volumes with VMware but I give up the ability to use Application Managed snapshots.

Dave