VCB & EVA4400

[nelmangle]

All,

i am about to configure (with your help) VCB within a new ESX Farm configuration.

I am proposing to employ a win2k3 server (currently functioning as a HP Command Veiw Server etc) FC Attached as a proxy server

Questions,

Do all VMFS volumes need to be presented (via HP Command View) to the proposed Proxy server (but not mounted as a drive etc) ?

This DISKPART commands that need to be run, is anyone aware if they impact HP Command View software or associated HP SAN management apps. ?

All advise welcomed

Nels

[apatel1]

Hi Nels, please see below.

All,

i am about to configure (with your help) VCB within a new ESX Farm configuration.

I am proposing to employ a win2k3 server (currently functioning as a HP Command Veiw Server etc) FC Attached as a proxy server

Questions,

Do all VMFS volumes need to be presented (via HP Command View) to the proposed Proxy server (but not mounted as a drive etc) ?

Yes, they all need to be presented to the VCB Proxy with full access (not read-only). To ensure the integrity of the data they contain, they should not be assigned drive letters.

This DISKPART commands that need to be run, is anyone aware if they impact HP Command View software or associated HP SAN management apps. ?

They shouldn't affect any of the management apps. They are just run to ensure that Windows doesn't automatically mount or initialize them, since Windows will see them as uninitialized, unreadable disks. This is how they should appear in Disk Management on the proxy.

All advise welcomed

Nels

Please help me out by awarding points for a "helpful" or "correct" response if you feel that it was useful!

-Amit

[aremmes]

Do all VMFS volumes need to be presented (via HP Command View) to the proposed Proxy server (but not mounted as a drive etc) ?

Yes, and all virtual-compatibility RDM volumes that you want to backup need to be presented as well. Additionally, the host mode ("operating system type" in Command View) of the proxy server to "VMware" instead of "Microsoft Windows".

This DISKPART commands that need to be run, is anyone aware if they impact HP Command View software or associated HP SAN management apps. ?

No, they won't break CV, as it doesn't care about Windows' view of the presented volumes, if any.

[BUGCHK]

> full access (not read-only)

You cannot create a mix of RW and RO presentations anyway, because it is a characteristic of the whole virtual disk.

> all virtual-compatibility RDM volumes

HP documentation says that RDMs to W2003 guests are not supported. 2 weeks ago I've talked to one of the people who do 'customer-focused testing' (testing real SQL or EXC implementations with load generators, not silly IOPS or MB/s benchmarks) and he said he would get it fixed.

> Additionally, the host mode ("operating system type" in Command View) of the proxy server to "VMware" instead of "Microsoft Windows".

The latest HP StorageWorks Enterprise Backup Solution design guide says:

""NOTE: VMware datastores residing on HP StorageWorks EVA storage arrays should use the "Windows host profile mode" for the VCB proxy server.""

The proxy uses Windows fibre channel device drivers and expects appropriate responses from the storage array.