Tommyt,

Great walk-through and look forward to more.  I have just one suggestion as it comes up quite often.  Despite the vSphere Client and the VSI plug-ins being supported on many workstation and server Windows OS's, there is just one component that might be worth bringing up.  Solutions Enabler running in Local Mode isn't supported on the following OS's: Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. 

When I did try some time ago (I think Windows 7 at the time) it would actually install but during the subsequent connection test, it would fail with a non-obvious error message, iirc.  It wasn't until scanning the "VSI for VMware vSphere: Storage Viewer Product Guide" at the time did I pick up on this support statement which is still current in the v5.1 PDF available on PowerLink.  I keep looking to the guide and release notes to see if this changes.  Otherwise the supported solution today, is to setup a separate SE remote installation or find a supported OS for SE local mode support.

Hi Tommyt,

I also have a suggestion on the documentation, especially for the usage of VSI in larger environments with higher security requirements.

With the "classic" approach each VMware Admin need to discover the arrays individually.

This would require multiple activities and even worse, array login information need to be shared with VMware admins.

And another point to mention is that VSI will store all data locally, so each VMware admin need to perform storage array updates on a regular base.

Therefor we should document the benefits of the SE client/server functionality when used by VSI.

Here's the process.

   Requirements

  - access to a central SE host

  - in Symmetrix Environments, this host must have Gatekeepers for each Symmetrix your useing with VMware

  - In Clariion/VNX Environments, this host must be able to reach the SP IP addresses.

   Required steps on the central SE host (when on Windows)

  - open CMD shell and run cd /d "C:\Program Files\EMC\SYMAPI\config\cert\"

  - run "C:\Program Files\EMC\SymCli\bin\manage_server_cert.bat" list

  - verfiy that the machine certificate does contain the fqdn of the server

  - Edit the file C:\Program Files\EMC\SYMAPI\config\nethost

  - add an entry for each Client you plan to install VSI in the following format

       (use * instead of username on shared clients)

  - open "C:\Program Files\EMC\SYMAPI\config\daemon_options" file

  - add/adjust value storsrvd:security_level = secure

  - run services.msc to verify presence of EMC storsrvd service and proper startup type Automatic

  - If EMC storsrvd already exists, restart the EMC storsrvd Service

  - If EMC storsrvd doesn't exist, run

      "C:\Program Files\EMC\SymCli\bin\stordaemon" list
      "C:\Program Files\EMC\SymCli\bin\stordaemon" install storsrvd -autostart
      "C:\Program Files\EMC\SymCli\bin\stordaemon" start storsrvd
      "C:\Program Files\EMC\SymCli\bin\stordaemon" list

   Required steps on each VSI client

  - open CMD shell and run cd /d "C:\Program Files\EMC\SYMAPI\config\cert\"

  - run "C:\Program Files\EMC\SymCli\bin\manage_server_cert.bat" list

  - verfiy that the machine certificate does contain the fqdn of the VSI client

  - configure VSI Storage Viewer to use the remote server, test and save the connection

Each discovered block array will be stored in the centralized symapi_db.bin on the remote storsrvd Server.

So there's no need to share CX/VNX login credentials with VMware Admins to allow VSI to provide EMC storage array details.

Regards,

Ralf