HP VMware VI Foundation Acceleration Kit License 460941-B21 Dépliant
Codici prodotto
460941-B21
Appendix A—Considerations when using the XP CV AE
host agent and XP RAID Manager with VMware
host agent and XP RAID Manager with VMware
The following discussion assumes that the VMware guest OS has already been installed on the
virtual machine.
virtual machine.
Assigning storage volumes to the VMware server
Volumes are assigned to a VMware server from an XP array in the same way a LUN is assigned to
any other server. Once the XP volume is allocated to the VMware server, the storage must be made
available to the guest OS by the VMware server as either a VMware VMFS volume or as a raw
device (RDM).
device (RDM).
VMware VMFS versus RDM (Raw Device Mapping)
VMware VMFS volumes are virtualized by the VMware kernel before being presented to the VMware
guest OS. The guest OS does not have direct access to the underlying physical volumes used for
VMware VMFS volumes.
RDM volumes are presented to the VMware guest OS as raw physical devices. SCSI commands from
a guest OS to a RDM volume are passed through the VMware kernel layer to the XP array volume.
The following restrictions apply when running the XP CV AE software on a VMware virtual machine:
•
RDM volumes are presented to the VMware guest OS as raw physical devices. SCSI commands from
a guest OS to a RDM volume are passed through the VMware kernel layer to the XP array volume.
The following restrictions apply when running the XP CV AE software on a VMware virtual machine:
•
XP Replication Manager’s replication functions require XP RAID Manager, which in turn, requires
access to an XP Command Device mapped as a RDM volume.
•
The XP CV AE host agent can only report information about RDM volumes.
XP CV AE host agent
The XP CV AE host agent can be installed on a virtual machine but care must be taken if more than
one XP CV AE host agent is installed on the same VMware server.
Two XP CV AE host agents should not be allowed to report the same WWN to the XP CV AE server. It
is necessary to assign XP LUNs so that the path from the XP array to each XP CV AE host agent
Two XP CV AE host agents should not be allowed to report the same WWN to the XP CV AE server. It
is necessary to assign XP LUNs so that the path from the XP array to each XP CV AE host agent
utilizes a different HBA of the VMware server.
If only one XP CV AE host agent is used on a VMware server, XP volumes and command devices can
If only one XP CV AE host agent is used on a VMware server, XP volumes and command devices can
be mapped to one or more HBAs on the same VMware server to take advantage of the built-in
multi-path capability of VMware, as previously shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2.
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