Veritas InfoScale™ Virtualization Guide - Linux on ESXi
- Section I. Overview
- About Veritas InfoScale solutions in a VMware environment
- Section II. Deploying Veritas InfoScale products in a VMware environment
- Getting started
- Understanding Storage Configuration
- 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 file system
- Section III. Use cases for Veritas InfoScale product components in a VMware environment
- 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
- How DMP works
- Achieving storage visibility using Dynamic Multi-Pathing in the hypervisor
- Achieving storage availability using Dynamic Multi-Pathing in the hypervisor
- Improving I/O performance with Dynamic Multi-Pathing in the hypervisor
- Achieving simplified management using Dynamic Multi-Pathing in the hypervisor and guest
- 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
- Setting up virtual machines for fast failover using Storage Foundation Cluster File System High Availability on VMware disks
- About use cases for InfoScale Enterprise 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
- Section IV. Reference
Veritas InfoScale component limitations in an ESXi environment
Some limitations apply for using Storage Foundation and Storage Foundation Cluster File System High Availability with VMware ESXi:
Dynamic Multi-Pathing
Dynamic Multi-Pathing (DMP) is supported in the VMware environment. Due to the architecture of VMware, DMP does not perform multi-pathing for the Virtual Machine. However, DMP is an integral part of the data path of Veritas InfoScaleproducts and performs device management tasks such as device discovery and thin reclamation.
See How Veritas InfoScale solutions work in a VMware environment.
Sharing VMDK files between virtual machines
When sharing VMDK files between virtual machines, SCSI BUS sharing mode for the corresponding SCSI controllers can be set to either "Physical" or "Virtual" modes. Setting this mode to "Physical" causes SCSI reservation conflict and I/O error on DMP. This issue occurs in LVM and raw disks also.
Solution:
Disable simultaneous write protection for the shared disk using the multi-writer flag. The procedure is described in the following VMware Knowledge Base article:
Volume Replicator (VVR) option
VVR is supported inside a Virtual Machine. Keep in mind that VVR can use a significant amount of network bandwidth (depends on the amount of data written to disk) and this can reduce the available network bandwidth for other virtual machines. Since the network card is a shared resource, ensure that enough bandwidth is available to sustain the writes happening to disk.
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 InfoScale Enterprise with VMDK files. This is a VMware limitation.
VMware snapshots are not supported with any VM using disks managed by the VMwareDisks agent.
vMotion (Live Migration)
For InfoScale Foundation: vMotion is supported.
For InfoScale Availability 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 InfoScale Availability to operate. InfoScale Availability 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 InfoScale Enterprise: vMotion is supported.
N-Port ID Virtualization (NPIV)
NPIV used with InfoScale Foundation is fully supported. No additional setup tasks are required for InfoScale 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, InfoScale products supports I/O fencing using the Coordination Point server as an arbitration mechanism.