M03res01 Host Connectivity Considerations

This module focuses on host connectivity considerations.
Copyright 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved Module 3: Host Connectivity Considerations 1
Symmetrix arrays can be attached to a wide variety of operating systems, which are too
numerous to list here. In the open systems world, the most widely used operating systems
are MS-Windows and Unix flavors such as Solaris, HP-UX, AIX and Linux. In recent years, as
VMware has grown in popularity, it is also common to find Symmetrix arrays attached to
VMware ESXi servers. For a complete list of supported hosts and operating systems, please
consult the E-Lab navigator accessible through http://support.emc.com.
The autoprovisioning command, symaccess, is used to map and mask devices, though
devices can also be mapped to Symmetrix front-end ports using the Config Manager
command, symconfigure.
Many vendors require specific fibre/SCSI flags to be set in order to communicate with the
storage array. Symmetrix permits the setting of flags at the fibre port level, as discussed in
Module 2. Front end ports can be shared by multiple hosts, as shown in the picture above.
Sometimes hosts sharing the front end ports may have different bit/flag requirements.
To accommodate hosts with different bit/flag requirements, Symmetrix permits port flags to
be overridden by flags set at the initiator or initiator group level. This topic is covered in
Module 4 of this course.
Browse to E-lab navigator, which can be accessed through https://support.emc.com/. Click
on E-lab Interoperability Navigator button. Select the tab titled PDFs and Guides.
Under the heading ESM by Operating System & EMC Host Connectivity Guides
youll find PDF copies of the support matrix and host connectivity guides for each operating
system. In the section under Bit/Flag information. you can find the recommended port
settings.
These are the common SCSI bus and Fibre port settings used by the common operating
systems.
After a Symmetrix device has been mapped to the front end port that a host is connected to,
the operating system on the host must be able to recognize the device. To accomplish this, a
SCSI bus rescan must be initiated from the host. The bus rescan commands vary from
operating system to operating system.
The commands shown here are taken from the EMC Host Connectivity Guides. While they
work reliably in most cases, they may not work for every version of a particular operating
system. Therefore, it is advisable to verify the accuracy of these commands by checking the
vendor documentation.
Since there are several flavors of commercially available Linux, there are a variety of ways
that the SCSI bus on those systems can be rescanned. The methods documented here are
taken from the Linux host connectivity guide.
In addition to the vendor supplied commands, EMC also has some commands in Solutions
Enabler that are designed to scan the SCSI bus. The EMC commands are convenient to use,
but the vendor supplied commands are the most reliable.
A virtual machine is a set of discrete files that are stored in a location that the hypervisor
uses to present a guest operating system. All virtual machines run on a hypervisor. What the
guest operating system can do from a feature and functionality standpoint is determined by
the hypervisor and the license that is selected.
A virtual machine does not see the hardware of the physical system that it is actually running
on. Because vendor supplied common virtual drivers are used in the creation of the virtual
machine, it is not bound to the physical hardware on which it was created.
Since the drivers are common, it does not matter which physical asset the virtual machine
runs on. This makes virtual machines portable and flexible. Depending on the hypervisor
vendor, you may have the ability to move the virtual machine while it is online. You may also
be able move the files associated with the virtual machine while it is online and in use.
Hence, a virtual machine is flexible and efficient in resource consumption.
Hypervisors come in two types: a native, bare metal (or Type 1) hypervisor and a hosted (or
Type 2) hypervisor.
A native, bare metal or Type 1 hypervisor runs directly on the physical system and consumes
all the resources that the physical system can present. The hypervisor software controls all
memory, CPU cycles, network and disk access. This is the form of hypervisor used in large
enterprises and data centers.
A hosted or Type 2 hypervisor runs within an existing operating system. It must share or
compete with the installed operating system for resources.
In this course we will only deal with Type 1 VMware ESXi servers and VMware virtual
machines. The server can be managed with either a GUI or command line called vCli.
A hypervisor is a construct that creates, runs, and manages virtual machines. It does so by abstracting
the hardware layer and presenting a predefined environment, including the drivers for virtual
machine consumption.
Abstraction of physical hardware occurs at four different levels; CPU, Memory, Networking, and
Storage.
Example of CPU Abstraction: A virtual machine could run on a physical server that has an Intel CPU.
The same virtual machine could also be powered off and transported to run on a physical server that
has an AMD processor. Multiple virtual machines can also be running on the processor with the
hypervisor scheduling the CPU, and the virtual machine is not aware of this process.
Example of Memory Abstraction: A virtual machine can be presented memory (RAM) that does not
actually exist. Page files, memory page de-duplication, and advanced hypervisor features allow this
operation to happen transparent to the virtual machine(s). These methods provide the ability to over
provision and provide more memory to the virtual machine than actually exist.
Example of Network Abstraction: A virtual machine can be provided a VLAN tag without the virtual
machine being aware this assignment has been made. This example can be used to illustrate that
actions typically performed by the network operations functional group can be addressed at the
hypervisor level.
Example of Storage Abstraction: Most hypervisors are typically vendor neutral and only require that
the storage vendor comply with presentation guidelines. If an EMC VMAX array presented a fibre
channel LUN and a VNX array presented an iSCSI LUN, both are considered storage at the hypervisor
level.
Hypervisors from different vendors vary widely in features and performance.
There are various ways in which storage can be presented to a virtual machine. This slide
illustrates the most common presentation style.
Datastores are virtual representations of combinations of underlying physical storage
resources in the datacenter. These physical storage resources are provided among others by
the Symmetrix array. The storage resources can also be provided by other sources, such as
local disks and network attached storage.
This style reflects the fact that the array will present the storage to the hypervisor and the
hypervisor will facilitate and allocate what is required to the virtual machine.
When the hypervisor facilitates presentation of storage to a VM, it means the hypervisor can
provide features, in addition to simple storage presentation. This can be achieved because all
storage requests pass through the kernel of the hypervisor.
It is best to present storage to the hypervisor using the vSphere client GUI. Use of the
vSphere client is covered in the last module of this course.
VMware raw device mapping methodology has two sub modes, virtual compatibility mode or
physical compatibility mode, and there are different characteristics of each.
If a VMware raw device mapping file is configured for virtual compatibility mode, this volume
can be consumed by the virtual machine while preserving an existing disk signature.
Another VMware raw device mapping style is called physical compatibility mode. This is used
to meet specific application requirements, high-performance applications, and any other
action that may require direct access to a particular logical unit.
The symvm command maps devices to virtual machines (VM) and displays configuration
information about your virtual environment. It is supported only on Windows and Linux
platforms.
This command works with VMware ESX and VMware ESXi (Linux/Windows x86), as well as
Microsoft Hyper-V environments. Microsoft Hyper-V requires the installation of the EMC
SMI-S Host Provider to provide a detailed view of the visible disks.
Experience has shown that EMC customers tend to prefer VMware vSphere to map virtual
storage to virtual machines over the raw device mapping features offered by the symvm
command. Hence, plans to support other platforms are as yet uncommitted.
Each virtual server must have credentials stored in the authorization database. Use the
symcfg auth command to set credentials for a virtual server.
Refer to the Solutions Enabler Symmetrix Array Management Product Guide Chapter 3 for
more details. We will explore some of the options of the symvm command in the next few
slides.
The symvm command can access a ESX Server either by specifying the IP address in the
authorization list, or by using the ESX Servers FQDN/Hostname in the authorization list.
In this example, the symcfg auth vmware add command is used to add an ESXi
server to the authorization database.
The VMs hosted by a virtual server are displayed by executing the symvm list server
<server name/IP address> vm all command. In this example, we see that this
ESXi host is hosting 6 VMs.
The symvm list server <server name/IP address> storage all
command lists the datastores configured on the ESXi host.
The symvm show server <server name/IP address> storage
<datastore> command shows the details of a specific datastore. In this example, we
see that this datastore has a capacity of 102144 MB, has one extent, and resides on a
Symmetrix Device.
The symvm list server <server name/IP address> disks sid ##
command lists the Symmetrix devices that have been presented to the ESXi host.
The symvm list server <server name/IP address> disks
available sid ## command lists the Symmetrix devices that have been presented
to the ESXi host, but are not currently in use. This list of Symmetrix devices can be used to
create datastores, or be presented as RDMs to VMs.
The symvm list server <server name/IP address> gk -mapped
sid ## command lists Symmetrix gatekeeper devices that have been presented to
specific VMs.
The symvm list server <server name/IP address> gk
available sid ## command lists the Symmetrix gatekeeper devices that have not
yet been presented any VMs. This list of gatekeeper devices can be presented as RDMs to
VMs.
The symvm show server <server name/IP address> vm <Vmname>
shows the details of a specific VM. The output shows the Hostname, OS, Power state,
memory, and a detailed listing of the RDM devices that have been presented to this VM.
Note: The VM Device count lists the Virtual Disks and RDMs that the VM sees. The detailed
listing only shows the RDMs.
The symvm map server -vm command can be used to present RDM devices to a
specific VM. In this example, two devices are presented as RDMs to VM sun188. One can see
that the devices have been successfully presented as RDMs in the output of symvm show
server <server name/IP address> vm <Vmname> command. The last two
rows represent the new devices that were just added as RDMs.
Note: The map feature of the symvm command is not supported on Microsoft Hyper-V.
The CLI commands shown here are useful for rescanning the SCSI bus. The preferred method
of using vCLI (esxcli) is to run it on a host that is network attached to the ESXi console. In
addition, the vSphere client GUI can be used to rescan the SCSI bus.
These are the key points covered in this module. Please take a moment to review them.

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This module focuses on host connectivity considerations.

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