Deploy Dell PowerFlex v3.6.x

PowerFlex plug-in Advanced Settings options

This topic describes the advanced settings options that you can use to configure the vSphere PowerFlex plug-in deployment settings.

To access these settings, on the PowerFlex screen, click Advanced settings.

The Advanced Settings dialog box appears.

Enable the features you want before starting the PowerFlex deployment, or, if you are in the middle of a deployment, you can click Cancel, then make the changes. When you restart the deployment, you can pick up from where you left off.

• Enable VMDK creation

  Enables the addition of devices as VMDK, as opposed to RDM.

  NOTE: Use of VMDK-based disks for storage devices is not recommended, and should be used only if no other option is possible.

• Force RDM on device with unknown RDM support

  Enables non-SCSI controller devices to be added as RDM.

  NOTE: Do not enable this option if the device does not support SCSI Inquiry Vital Data Product (VPD) page code 0x83.

• Allow the take over of devices with existing signature

  Enables the reuse of devices that were part of a previous PowerFlex deployment, and were not removed properly. This setting will revert to not selected after each use, and must be reactivated if required again.

• Allow using non-local datastores for PowerFlex Gateway

  Enable deployment of the PowerFlex Gateway SVM on non-local datastores (such as remote storage), in case of insufficient space on the local datastore, or if no datastore can be found. Another advantage of having the PowerFlex Gateway available at all times is that even when an ESXi node is rebooted, the PowerFlex Gateway can vMotion like any other VM residing on a non-local datastore.

• Parallelism limit

  Enables the increase of the parallelism limit (default: 100), thus speeding up the deployment, which can be useful in deployment of a very large system (several hundred nodes). This is dependent on the processing power of the vCenter.