Veritas InfoScale™ Virtualization Guide - Linux on ESXi

Last Published:
Product(s): InfoScale & Storage Foundation (7.4)
Platform: VMware ESX
  1. Section I. Overview
    1. About Veritas InfoScale solutions in a VMware environment
      1.  
        Overview of the Veritas InfoScale Products Virtualization Guide
      2. How Veritas InfoScale solutions work in a VMware environment
        1.  
          How Veritas InfoScale product components enhance VMware capabilities
        2.  
          When to use Raw Device Mapping and Storage Foundation
        3.  
          Array migration
        4.  
          Veritas InfoScale component limitations in an ESXi environment
        5.  
          I/O fencing considerations in an ESXi environment
      3.  
        About Veritas InfoScale solutions support for the VMware ESXi environment
      4.  
        Virtualization use cases addressed by Veritas InfoScale products
  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 Veritas InfoScale products
      3.  
        Veritas InfoScale products support for VMware environments
      4.  
        Installing and configuring storage solutions in the VMware virtual environment
    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 storage visibility, availability, and I/O performance using Dynamic Multi-Pathing
      1.  
        Use cases for Dynamic Multi-Pathing (DMP) in the VMware environment
      2. How DMP works
        1. How DMP monitors I/O on paths
          1.  
            Path failover mechanism
          2.  
            I/O throttling
          3.  
            Subpaths Failover Group (SFG)
          4.  
            Low Impact Path Probing (LIPP)
        2.  
          Load balancing
        3.  
          About DMP I/O policies
      3.  
        Achieving storage visibility using Dynamic Multi-Pathing in the hypervisor
      4.  
        Achieving storage availability using Dynamic Multi-Pathing in the hypervisor
      5.  
        Improving I/O performance with Dynamic Multi-Pathing in the hypervisor
      6.  
        Achieving simplified management using Dynamic Multi-Pathing in the hypervisor and guest
    4. Improving data protection, storage optimization, data migration, and database performance
      1.  
        Use cases for Veritas InfoScale product components in a VMware guest
      2. Protecting data with Veritas InfoScale product components in the VMware guest
        1.  
          About point-in-time copies
        2.  
          Point-in-time snapshots for Veritas InfoScale products in the VMware environment
      3. Optimizing storage with Veritas InfoScale product components in the VMware guest
        1.  
          About SmartTier in the VMware environment
        2.  
          About compression with Veritas InfoScale product components in the VMware guest
        3.  
          About thin reclamation with Veritas InfoScale product components in the VMware guest
        4.  
          About SmartMove with Veritas InfoScale product components in the VMware guest
        5.  
          About SmartTier for Oracle with Veritas InfoScale product components in the VMware guest
      4. Migrating data with Veritas InfoScale product components in the VMware guest
        1.  
          Types of data migration
      5. Improving database performance with Veritas InfoScale product components in the VMware guest
        1.  
          About Veritas InfoScale product components database accelerators
    5. Setting up virtual machines for fast failover using Storage Foundation Cluster File System High Availability on VMware disks
      1.  
        About use cases for InfoScale Enterprise in the VMware guest
      2.  
        Storage Foundation Cluster File System High Availability operation in VMware virtualized environments
      3.  
        Storage Foundation functionality and compatibility matrix
      4. About setting up Storage Foundation Cluster File High System High Availability on VMware ESXi
        1.  
          Planning a Storage Foundation Cluster File System High Availability (SFCFSHA) 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 Storage Foundation Cluster File System High Availability (SFCFSHA)
          2.  
            Configuring a Coordination Point server service group
          3.  
            Configuring a Cluster Server (VCS) single node cluster
        5.  
          Deploying Storage Foundation Cluster File System High Availability (SFCFSHA) software
        6.  
          Configuring Storage Foundation Cluster File System High Availability (SFCFSHA)
        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.  
        Veritas InfoScale documentation
      2.  
        Service and support
      3.  
        About Veritas Services and Operations Readiness Tools (SORT)

Improving I/O performance with Dynamic Multi-Pathing in the hypervisor

When you install DMP in the hypervisor, DMP provides visibility into the I/O paths and performance. You can use the datacenter view or the individual statistics to determine if certain LUNs are not performing as well as other LUNs. If you determine a bottleneck, you can move some of the I/O workload (and thus Virtual Machines) to another datastore to alleviate the I/O performance contention.

The following scenario describes a typical use case for improving I/O performance.

Use the datacenter view of DMP to determine which storage arrays are attached to which ESXi servers. In this scenario, one of the storage arrays is not performing well.

You can select the storage array that is not performing well to view additional I/O performance details at the VMDK level. You can use this information to understand I/O loads within individual guests and the actual subcomponents of the disks assigned to the guests.

Figure: Example I/O performance statistics shows the statistics for several LUNs. In the "Avg Time Write" column for the clariion0_5 device, its performance is significantly slower than the clariion0_1, despite similar workloads reflected by the "virtual machine" column.

Figure: Example I/O performance statistics

Example I/O performance statistics

For this example, DMP is not running in the guests. If you also have DMP running in the individual guests, you can correlate the I/O statistics to the particular guests.

If you determine a high I/O workload for a particular LUN, you may need to move some of the I/O workload (and thus Virtual Machines) to another datastore to alleviate the I/O performance contention.