Veritas InfoScale™ 7.3.1 Virtualization Guide - Linux on ESXi
- Section I. Overview
- Overview of Veritas InfoScale solutions in a VMware environment
- Overview of the Veritas InfoScale Products Virtualization Guide
- Introduction to using Veritas InfoScale solutions in the VMware virtualization environment
- Introduction to using Dynamic Multi-Pathing for VMware
- About the Veritas InfoScale components
- About Veritas InfoScale solutions support for the VMware ESXi environment
- Virtualization use cases addressed by Veritas InfoScale products
- Overview of Veritas InfoScale solutions in a VMware environment
- Section II. Deploying Veritas InfoScale products in a VMware environment
- Getting started
- Veritas InfoScale products supported configurations in an VMware ESXi environment
- Storage configurations and feature compatibility
- About setting up VMware with Veritas InfoScale products
- Veritas InfoScale products support for VMware environments
- Installing and configuring storage solutions in the VMware virtual environment
- Getting started
- Section III. Use cases for Veritas InfoScale product components in a VMware environment
- Storage to application visibility using Veritas InfoScale Operations Manager
- About storage to application visibility using Veritas InfoScale Operations Manager
- About discovering the VMware Infrastructure using Veritas InfoScale Operations Manager
- Requirements for discovering vCenter and ESX servers using Veritas InfoScale Operations Manager
- How Veritas InfoScale Operations Manager discovers vCenter and ESX servers
- Information that Veritas InfoScale Operations Manager discovers on the VMware Infrastructure components
- About the datastores in Veritas InfoScale Operations Manager
- About the multi-pathing discovery in the VMware environment
- About near real-time (NRT) update of virtual machine states
- About discovering LPAR and VIO in Veritas InfoScale Operations Manager
- About LPAR storage correlation supported in Veritas InfoScale Operations Manager
- Application availability using Cluster Server
- Multi-tier business service support
- Improving storage visibility, availability, and I/O performance using Dynamic Multi-Pathing
- Use cases for Dynamic Multi-Pathing (DMP) in the VMware environment
- About Dynamic Multi-Pathing for VMware
- How DMP works
- About storage visibility using Dynamic Multi-Pathing (DMP) in the hypervisor
- Example: achieving storage visibility using Dynamic Multi-Pathing in the hypervisor
- About storage availability using Dynamic Multi-Pathing in the hypervisor
- Example: achieving storage availability using Dynamic Multi-Pathing in the hypervisor
- About I/O performance with Dynamic Multi-Pathing in the hypervisor
- Example: improving I/O performance with Dynamic Multi-Pathing in the hypervisor
- About simplified management using Dynamic Multi-Pathing in the hypervisor and guest
- Example: achieving simplified management using Dynamic Multi-Pathing in the hypervisor and guest
- Improving I/O performance using SmartPool
- Improving data protection, storage optimization, data migration, and database performance
- Use cases for Veritas InfoScale product components in a VMware guest
- Protecting data with Veritas InfoScale product components in the VMware guest
- Optimizing storage with Veritas InfoScale product components in the VMware guest
- About SmartTier in the VMware environment
- About compression with Veritas InfoScale product components in the VMware guest
- About thin reclamation with Veritas InfoScale product components in the VMware guest
- About SmartMove with Veritas InfoScale product components in the VMware guest
- About SmartTier for Oracle with Veritas InfoScale product components in the VMware guest
- Migrating data with Veritas InfoScale product components in the VMware guest
- Improving database performance with Veritas InfoScale product components in the VMware guest
- Simplified storage management with Veritas InfoScale product components in the VMware guest
- Setting up virtual machines for fast failover using Storage Foundation Cluster File System High Availability on VMware disks
- About use cases for Storage Foundation Cluster File System High Availability in the VMware guest
- Storage Foundation Cluster File System High Availability operation in VMware virtualized environments
- Storage Foundation functionality and compatibility matrix
- About setting up Storage Foundation Cluster File High System High Availability on VMware ESXi
- Planning a Storage Foundation Cluster File System High Availability (SFCFSHA) configuration
- Enable Password-less SSH
- Enabling TCP traffic to coordination point (CP) Server and management ports
- Configuring coordination point (CP) servers
- Deploying Storage Foundation Cluster File System High Availability (SFCFSHA) software
- Configuring Storage Foundation Cluster File System High Availability (SFCFSHA)
- Configuring non-SCSI3 fencing
- Configuring storage
- Enabling disk UUID on virtual machines
- Installing Array Support Library (ASL) for VMDK on cluster nodes
- Excluding the boot disk from the Volume Manager configuration
- Creating the VMDK files
- Mapping the VMDKs to each virtual machine (VM)
- Enabling the multi-write flag
- Getting consistent names across nodes
- Creating a clustered file system
- Storage to application visibility using Veritas InfoScale Operations Manager
- Section IV. Reference
Veritas InfoScale products support for VMware functionality
Veritas InfoScale components provide the following support for VMware functionality:
VMware snapshots
The following limitations apply for VMware snapshots:
VMware snapshots are not supported when raw device mapping is used in physical mode, regardless of whether Veritas InfoScale components are installed or not. The REDO-log functionality that is required for VMware Snapshots is not available with raw device mapping used in the physical mode.
Veritas InfoScale components support VMDK file utilization as a backend storage to overcome this limitation.
Veritas InfoScale components also support raw device mapping in the logical mode and VMware snapshots, since RDM-logical mode uses the same level of SCSI virtualization as VMDK files.
VMware snapshots are not supported when using VMDK files as backend storage and the multi-writer flag has been set. For example, when using SFCFSHA with VMDK files. This is a VMware limitation.
VMware snapshots are not supported with any VM using disks managed by the VMwareDisks agent, due to a limitation with the agent.
vMotion (Live Migration)
For Storage Foundation: vMotion is supported.
For Storage Foundation High Availability (SFHA) and Cluster Server (VCS):
VMware vMotion has a limitation that affects all clustering software. vMotion is not supported when a virtual SCSI controller is set to have sharing enabled. Virtual SCSI controller sharing is a virtual machine attribute and is required to be set for the virtual machines that share storage between each other (on the same physical ESXi server or between physical ESXi servers). Essentially all clustering products that rely on SAN storage require this attribute to be set.
VCS provides the VMwareDisks agent to override this limitation and enable shared storage for SFHA to operate. SFHA supports VMDK files and therefore vMotion.
See About setting up Storage Foundation Cluster File High System High Availability on VMware ESXi.
This limitation does not affect the virtual machines that do not have the sharing attribute turned on for their virtual SCSI controllers.
For Storage Foundation Cluster File System High Availability (SFCFSHA): vMotion is supported.
N-Port ID Virtualization (NPIV)
NPIV used with Storage Foundation is fully supported. No additional setup tasks are required for Storage Foundation when the storage is NPIV-enabled.
VMware currently does not support I/O fencing with NPIV for any other 3rd party clustering software other than MSCS. In VMware environments, Storage Foundation High Availability (SFHA) and SFCFSHA support I/O fencing using the Coordination Point server as an arbitration mechanism.