InfoScale™ 9.0 Virtualization Guide - Linux on ESXi

Last Published:
Product(s): InfoScale & Storage Foundation (9.0)
Platform: Linux,VMware ESX
  1. Section I. Overview
    1. About Veritas InfoScale solutions in a VMware environment
      1.  
        Overview of the InfoScale Virtualization Guide
      2. How InfoScale™ solutions work in a VMware environment
        1.  
          How InfoScale™ product components enhance VMware capabilities
        2.  
          When to use Raw Device Mapping and InfoScale
        3.  
          Array migration
        4.  
          InfoScale™ component limitations in an ESXi environment
        5.  
          I/O fencing considerations in an ESXi environment
      3.  
        About InfoScale™ solutions support for the VMware ESXi environment
      4.  
        Virtualization use cases addressed by InfoScale
  2. Section II. Deploying Veritas InfoScale products in a VMware environment
    1. Getting started
      1.  
        Storage configurations and feature compatibility
      2.  
        About setting up VMware with InfoScale™ products
      3.  
        InfoScale™ products support for VMware environments
      4.  
        Installing and configuring storage solutions in the VMware virtual environment
      5.  
        Recommendations for improved resiliency of InfoScale clusters in virtualized environments
    2. Understanding Storage Configuration
      1.  
        Configuring storage
      2.  
        Enabling disk UUID on virtual machines
      3.  
        Installing Array Support Library (ASL) for VMDK on cluster nodes
      4.  
        Excluding the boot disk from the Volume Manager configuration
      5.  
        Creating the VMDK files
      6.  
        Mapping the VMDKs to each virtual machine (VM)
      7.  
        Enabling the multi-write flag
      8.  
        Getting consistent names across nodes
      9.  
        Creating a file system
  3. Section III. Use cases for Veritas InfoScale product components in a VMware environment
    1. Application availability using Cluster Server
      1.  
        About application availability with Cluster Server (VCS) in the guest
      2.  
        About VCS support for Live Migration
    2. Multi-tier business service support
      1.  
        About Virtual Business Services
      2.  
        Sample virtual business service configuration
    3. Improving data protection, storage optimization, data migration, and database performance
      1.  
        Use cases for InfoScale™ product components in a VMware guest
      2. Protecting data with InfoScale™ product components in the VMware guest
        1.  
          About point-in-time copies
        2.  
          Point-in-time snapshots for InfoScale™ products in the VMware environment
      3. Optimizing storage with InfoScale™ product components in the VMware guest
        1. About Flexible Storage Sharing
          1.  
            Limitations of Flexible Storage Sharing
        2.  
          About SmartTier in the VMware environment
        3.  
          About compression with InfoScale™ product components in the VMware guest
        4.  
          About thin reclamation with InfoScale™ product components in the VMware guest
        5.  
          About SmartMove with InfoScale™ product components in the VMware guest
        6.  
          About SmartTier for Oracle with InfoScale™ product components in the VMware guest
      4. Migrating data with InfoScale™ product components in the VMware guest
        1.  
          Types of data migration
      5. Improving database performance with InfoScale™ product components in the VMware guest
        1.  
          About InfoScale™ product components database accelerators
    4. Setting up virtual machines for fast failover using InfoScale Enterprise on VMware disks
      1.  
        About use cases for InfoScale Enterprise in the VMware guest
      2.  
        InfoScale Enterprise operation in VMware virtualized environments
      3.  
        InfoScale functionality and compatibility matrix
      4. About setting up InfoScale Enterprise on VMware ESXi
        1.  
          Planning a InfoScale Enterprise configuration
        2.  
          Enable Password-less SSH
        3.  
          Enabling TCP traffic to coordination point (CP) Server and management ports
        4. Configuring coordination point (CP) servers
          1.  
            Configuring a Coordination Point server for InfoScale Enterprise
          2.  
            Configuring a Cluster Server (VCS) single node cluster
          3.  
            Configuring a Coordination Point server service group
        5.  
          Deploying InfoScale Enterprise software
        6.  
          Configuring InfoScale Enterprise
        7.  
          Configuring non-SCSI3 fencing
  4. Section IV. Reference
    1. Appendix A. Known issues and limitations
      1.  
        Prevention of Storage vMotion
    2. Appendix B. Where to find more information
      1.  
        Arctera InfoScale documentation
      2.  
        Service and support
      3.  
        About Services and Operations Readiness Tools (SORT)

How InfoScale™ solutions work in a VMware environment

Using InfoScale™ solutions in a VMware environment means that the InfoScale™ product runs in the operating system, inside the Virtual Machine (VM).

The InfoScale™ component, such as InfoScale, does not run inside the VMware ESXi kernel or in the Hypervisor.

Figure: Architecture overview shows an example of the high-level architecture diagram with InfoScale running in the VM.

Figure: Architecture overview

Architecture overview

Figure: I/O path from Virtual Machine to storage shows the I/O path from the Virtual Machine to the storage.

Figure: I/O path from Virtual Machine to storage

I/O path from Virtual Machine to storage

VMware has several different methods to allocate block storage to a virtual machine:

  • File-based virtual disks created in VMFS or from NFS - Virtual Disk

  • Block storage mapped from local disk, Fibre Channel LUNs or iSCSI - Raw Device Mapping

VMware must be configured to use Raw Device Mapping for certain features of Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM) to operate as they do in a physical server environment.

See When to use Raw Device Mapping and InfoScale.