What are the "vStorage APIs for Multipathing"?

[jaturley]

I have 2 vmware clusters at seperate locations. One is licensed for vSphere Advanced and the othe for vSphere Enterprise plus. I was able to configure multipathing to my equalloigc SAN for both clusters. However advanced is not licensed for the vStorage APIs for Multipathing. How am I able to configure multipathing? Does the licensing for the multipathing API's only apply if I use additional software such as the EqualLogic Multipathing Extension Module for VMware® vSphere? Thanks

[a_p_]

Does the licensing for the multipathing API's only apply if I use additional software such as the EqualLogic Multipathing Extension Module for VMware

I don't know the EqualLogic Extensions, but yes, it's an API for storage partners.

see http://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere4/doc/vsp_40_new_feat.html#vStorageMultipathAPI

André

[Borja_Mari]

Hi,

as it's commented here, a enterprise or enterprise plus vSphere license is needed to be able to use third party multipath capabilities.

I would recommend you to check carefully this article about iscsi multipathing.

Hope this helps

Regards/Saludos,
Pablo

Please consider awarding

any helpful or corrrect answer. Thanks!! -

Por favor considera premiar

cualquier respuesta útil o correcta. ¡¡Muchas gracias!!

Virtually noob blog

[VMmatty]

You can configure your hosts for native multipathing, including Round Robin, in all versions of vSphere. In order to use those multipathing plug-ins provided by third party vendors, such as the EqualLogic MEM or EMC's PowerPath/VE, you need at least vSphere Enterprise.

These multipathing plug-ins are designed by the vendors to be more efficient than the native multipathing (NMP) plug-in that is included with vSphere. They will offer higher performance for those arrays but only a handful of vendors actually supply them and EqualLogic is one of them. Take a look at the following link which provides some test results with the EqualLogic MEM:

http://www.spoonapedia.com/2010/07/dell-equallogic-multipathing-extension.html

Hope this helps clear up the confusion.

Matt

My blog: