How to present a LUN to a VM?

[TedH256]

I know how to do an RDM - my question is:

if I wanted to zone the FC fabric so that a virtual machine could see a storage controller directly - how would I do that? I'm pretty sure it is possible, I just have no idea how to go about it, or even where in the manual to look?

Thanx in advance!

[DavoudTeimouri]

HI,

Just you can add your WWN to your VM from VM settings -> Options -> Fiber Channel NPIV

[TedH256]

sweet - why was that so hard to find in the docs? Gees ...

Anyway, I notice that the option is greyed out for me. A couple follow-up questions:

1)These are DL380 G6 servers with EVA -supported FC adapters. I'd be hugely surprised if the storage does not support NPIV. I'll google it now, but any idea whether an ISP2532-based 8GB FC adapter (this is what shows in configuration/storage adapters) should be NPIV enabled? If so - why is the option greyed out?

2)The thing I am trying to accomplish is to expose the EVA controller to this VM so that I can install/run the Command View EVA (SAN management tool) on a VM. The HP docs say (see the below). Do you think that zoning using NPIV = virtualized SCSI mode, or VM Direct Path?

Thank you for chiming in - I was beginning to think that I was crazy for asking/trying to figure out how to do this, as I couldn't get responses or find anything in docs!

"If you use the VMware guest operating system, you must have a host running VMware

3.5 or later and a virtual machine connected to the VMware host running a supported

version of Windows (the guest operating system on the virtual machine). See your

operating system documentation for details about setting up a virtual machine. Installing,

upgrading, and removing HP P6000 Command View on a virtual machine is the same

as installing HP P6000 Command View on a management server (a physical machine).

When using the VMware guest operating system, two methods are supported:

– Virtualized SCSI Mode: With this method, only the active path to LUN 0 of a single

controller can be made visible to HP P6000 Command View on the virtual machine.

Virtualized SCSI Mode is enabled by default when you install HP P6000 Command

View 9.3 or later.

– VMDirectPath (PCI pass-through): Supported on HP P6000 Command View 9.3 or

later. See Table 4.0, HP software deployment options, in the HP P6000 Enterprise

Virtual Array Compatibility Reference for VMDirectPath hardware requirements. To

8 Preparation

configure VMDirectPath, see “Configuring VMDirectPath I/O for HP ProLiant Servers,”

which is available on the VMware website at:

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1025641

NOTE: Although this technical note indicates that the VMDirectPath configuration

is experimental, HP and VMware have an agreement that this configuration is

supported."

[DavoudTeimouri]

I checked it on our BL460c G6 but I have a DL380 G6.

Let me to check it on the server.

[DavoudTeimouri]

It's available for me on my DL, of curse with hardware version 7.

[TedH256]

off the top of your head - do you know whether a VM that will have NPIV enabled, has to first have an RDM presented to it?

Support is telling me we have to do that - but it seems really odd to me, why would that be the case?

[Cyberfed27]

Why bother, just zone to your VMware ESXi hosts. Then you can present the LUN as a RDM to your VM.