vSphere Storage - ESXi 5.1 - Documentation - VMware

vSphere Storage
For information, see the vSphere Compatibility Guide and refer to you vendor documentation.
n Use HBAs of the same type, either all QLogic or all Emulex. VMware does not support heterogeneous
HBAs on the same host accessing the same LUNs.
n If a host uses multiple physical HBAs as paths to the storage, zone all physical paths to the virtual
machine. This is required to support multipathing even though only one path at a time will be active.
n Make sure that physical HBAs on the host have access to all LUNs that are to be accessed by NPIVenabled
virtual machines running on that host.
n The switches in the fabric must be NPIV-aware.
n When configuring a LUN for NPIV access at the storage level, make sure that the NPIV LUN number and
NPIV target ID match the physical LUN and Target ID.
NPIV Capabilities and Limitations
Learn about specific capabilities and limitations of the use of NPIV with ESXi.
ESXi with NPIV supports the following items:
n NPIV supports vMotion. When you use vMotion to migrate a virtual machine it retains the assigned
WWN.
If you migrate an NPIV-enabled virtual machine to a host that does not support NPIV, VMkernel reverts
to using a physical HBA to route the I/O.
n If your FC SAN environment supports concurrent I/O on the disks from an active-active array, the
concurrent I/O to two different NPIV ports is also supported.
When you use ESXi with NPIV, the following limitations apply:
n Because the NPIV technology is an extension to the FC protocol, it requires an FC switch and does not
work on the direct attached FC disks.
n When you clone a virtual machine or template with a WWN assigned to it, the clones do not retain the
WWN.
n NPIV does not support Storage vMotion.
n Disabling and then re-enabling the NPIV capability on an FC switch while virtual machines are running
can cause an FC link to fail and I/O to stop.
Assign WWNs to Virtual Machines in the vSphere Web Client
Assign WWN settings to virtual machine with an RDM disk.
You can create from 1 to 16 WWN pairs, which can be mapped to the first 1 to 16 physical FC HBAs on the
host.
Prerequisites
Create a virtual machine with an RDM disk. See “Create Virtual Machines with RDMs in the vSphere Web
Client,” on page 185.
Procedure
1 Browse to the virtual machine.
a Select a datacenter, folder, cluster, resource pool, or host.
b Click the Related Objects tab and click Virtual Machines.
2 Right-click the virtual machine and select Edit Settings.
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