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vSphere guidance (looking for a field guide for v4)

 
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Steven Vallarian
Occasional Contributor

vSphere guidance (looking for a field guide for v4)

I'm looking for something similar to the vi3 field guide, but updated for the new features in vSphere.

Specifically my questions are:
Do we need to setup the SAN using the same network guidance listed in the field guide?

Does the new Distributed switch need to be used?

Are there any documents related to the vSphere and San/IQ somewhere?

27 REPLIES 27
kghammond
Frequent Advisor

Re: vSphere guidance (looking for a field guide for v4)

We are also looking for a vSphere guide. In particular, we are looking for details on the MPIO implementation in vSphere 4 and how it interacts with LeftHand and how to set it up properly.

Thank You,
Kevin
Gauche
Trusted Contributor
Solution

Re: vSphere guidance (looking for a field guide for v4)

I've got that guide, it is just a matter of actually getting it published onto the HP website. Sounds easy right...
Oh well.
For now here it is as a draft on the forum.

**** edit *****
It is published now...
http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetDocument.aspx?docname=4AA3-0261ENW
Adam C, LeftHand Product Manger
kghammond
Frequent Advisor

Re: vSphere guidance (looking for a field guide for v4)

Thank you for the documentation. It looks like we had everything configured correctly for MPIO. We pulled the informaiton from the iSCSI Configuration Guide and from some DELL Equalogic guides.

The only remaining question we have is:

If you are using MPIO, should the nics on the individual LeftHand nodes be bonded or not. Since MPIO is many paths, we thought there might be some benefit to haveing paths from all vSphere NIC's to all Cluster node NIC's.

Do you know if LeftHand will be able to provide a MPIO solution where vSphere/LeftHand can dynamically pick paths (nic's) with little load to help balance the iSCSI LAN traffic?

Thank you,
Kevin
Ole Thomsen_1
Trusted Contributor

Re: vSphere guidance (looking for a field guide for v4)

Great stuff, Gauche!

Can you provide similar docs for vSphere, EVA4400 and FC?

Ole Thomsen
CalvinZito
HPE Blogger

Re: vSphere guidance (looking for a field guide for v4)

The document that was attached has been updated and the updated version is available on hp.com: http://bit.ly/yOfCC. The title is different - I don't know what else has changed.
Tyler Modell
New Member

Re: vSphere guidance (looking for a field guide for v4)

@HPstorageGuy

Looks like the guide you posted was for a VI3 configuration with the P4000 SAN whereas the prior attachment was for running vSphere 4 with an HP P4000 SAN.

Tyler
kghammond
Frequent Advisor

Re: vSphere guidance (looking for a field guide for v4)

It appears the major difference in the documentation between VI3 and vSphere is the section on MPIO.

As I stated earlier the guidance is virtually identical to VMware's iSCSI Configuration Guide for MPIO.

The one clarification is that it appears LeftHand supports the Round Robin Path Selection to balance and aggregate bandwidth across multiple nic's. From our testing this is working perfectly and it should allow an individual VM to exceed 1 Gbps of iSCSI traffic.

I am curios if HP/LeftHand have a long term vision to implement a custom MPIO provider that may look at utilization loads per node and per nic and allow vSphere to dynamically shift path selections based on load.

Kevin
zxr_1
Occasional Contributor

Re: vSphere guidance (looking for a field guide for v4)

does the multi pathing section also pertain to the VSA product. My nodes are two Dell 2950's using local storage. If it does will I see better performance implementing multi pathing.

Thanks
Ben02
Occasional Advisor

Re: vSphere guidance (looking for a field guide for v4)

I would also like a copy relevant to VSphere? Can you please post again?