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February 23rd, 2010 08:00
Solutions Enabler running on a VM with RDM Gatekeepers
I hope someone else is doing this and can provide some direction (or at least tell me that my concerns are unfounded).
I've been discussing with my ESX specialist configuring a VM that will be used to control certain SRDF/A and TimeFinder operations. To do this we will be installing Solutions Enabler and provisioning gatekeeper devices through the ESX 3.5 servers as RDM devices. We have already tested this (including vMotion) successfully with the GKs provisioned down a single path. My concern is over what will happen when we provision the GKs following our standard through multiple FAs.
So, to understand our environment I'll give a high level before I get to the detailed question.
- ESX 3.5 pod made up of 4 physical servers sharing devices from a DMX3
- Each physical ESX server has two HBAs (each connecting to a separate fabric)
- Each HBA is zoned to two FA ports on the DMX3
Our standard for GK provisioning is to have each GK mapped to only a single FA. If a host connects to multiple FAs, then the total required GKs are provisioned across all FAs (i.e. if a host connects to 2 FAs and requires 8 GKs, it will see 4 through each FA)
My concern is that ESX 3.5 has active/passive connectivity to the DMX3. At any point in time only one of the 4 paths from each physical host is active. Since different GKs are going to be visible through different FAs, how will the VM handle the fact that a path failover could change what GKs are visible at any point in time?
If anyone is doing anything like this right now I would love to hear how you are managing it.
We are looking at getting the DMX attached ESX 3.5 pods upgraded the ESX 4 (which I understand has built in load balancing and failover), but I'm not sure how soon that will be completed. We may not have it in time to prevent this being an issue.
Suggestions? Advice? Sighs of relief that this isn't you dealing with this? :-)
dynamox
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February 23rd, 2010 09:00
Hi Allen,
Let me start out by saying I don't have this fancy configuration :D. I know it's recommended to not map/mask gatekeepers to multiple FAs for the same host because Powepath may interfere with symapi calls but in your case you always have only one path active so could you map these specific gatekeepers to all 4 FAs and mask them to this VM ?
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dynamox
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February 23rd, 2010 10:00
i know, it can't be that simple. We have to justify our salaries
Your PowerPath/gatekeeper question, i am running Exchange 2007 TimeFinder integration package and this issue bit me. Here is an explanation what happens
emc104433
Allen Ward
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February 23rd, 2010 10:00
Wouldn't that be way to simple though dynamox? *lol*
You know, I never got a clear answer up front why we were told not to map GKs down multiple FAs, but that explanation makes sense. And assuming that is true than we can definitely do it safely for this one environment. I'll have to give this a try and see if that resolves this. It would definitely remove my concern about the changing GKs visible to the VM.
Thanks, we'll give this a run through and see what happens.