Add vplex to vipr,but I can not see the pool

Hello sunrui,

please refer to VPLEX documentation available at EMC ViPR 2.0 Product Documentation Index

The steps provide good detail on what needs to be done.

In short - VPLEX doesn't have its own pools. For ViPR to manage VPLEX, you need to discover all components, including B-E storage arrays, VPLEX, and fabrics. Assuming hosts are connected to those fabrics as well.

You should create VA, which has:

     VPLEX

     Storage Arrays you want VPLEX to use (you should use "Add Storage Ports" for array ports, especially if you want to specify which FAs VPLEX is to use. Also, your fabrics A and B should have different processors. VPLEX will not accept using port 0 on A and port 1 on B for the same processor. So pick carefully. )

     Your fabrics

You should create VP, which has:

     among other normal settings, select High Availability VPLEX Local or Distributed (ViPR supports Metro).

At the bottom of your VP, your Thin Pools should show up - that is the physical storage ViPR will zone to VPLEX, and VPLEX will use.

Pay special attention to white paper "Discovery-and-Use-of-VPLEX-VMAX-Pre-Existing-Multiple-Masking-Views" that you can find on support.emc.com.  This paper details implemented ViPR VPLEX behavior for cases when you desire to "help" ViPR by manually setting up VMAX Masking Views or their visibility analogies on other systems.

Hello velik,

                Thank you very much for help me , I don't add back-end storage to vipr, I have a huawei array that belongs to third-party-array for vipr.  I found that vipr can add third-party-array using openstack cinder service , I have deployed a openstack environment(followed by this paper "OpenStack (Icehouse) installation and configuration for use witch EMC ViPR"),and configured cinder.conf profile, I can create volumes successfully on cinder using huawei array, when I add openstack block storage to vipr , I can find the storage system ,but the capacity of the pool is 953GB, autually the capacity of the raid is 1856GB in huawei array, I create the network(using iSCSI protocol) and when I create virtual array, the virtual pool can not be associated with the storage pool even through I add network and storage system. could you help me ? thanks a lot

Hi Sunrui,

You have read the post where I made a lot of comments for my journey with XIV array. Please read the post, the troubleshooting steps, and comments - all of it, with maximum attention to detail in its entirety. That will explain 953GB for you.

I actually have not attempted VPLEX with 3rd party arrays, but I suspect the problem might be with needing to do 2 things:

1) add/register a port for your 3rd party array. Procedure described here: http://www.emc.com/techpubs/vipr/ui_add_storage_third_party_block-1.htm

2) when creating VPs with 3rd party block arrays, you MUST set min/max/desired paths numbers to ONE (1), all of them. Cinder doesn't tell ViPR anything about pathing via APIs, so ViPR asks that users acknowledge that only 1 path is a possibility. Multipathing actually is configured at Cinder layer, and ViPR cannot guarantee how Cinder will provision arrays.

3) Cinder, in my experience, FAILS to provision when host WWNs are actually not visible on storage array. That is common in LAB environments where you test with imaginary components. You have to have real hosts to test with Cinder, from my experience.

3a) as a consequence of my lack of confidence in how Cinder provisions storage ( we are talking about asking Cinder to map/mask VPLEX array ), I recommend that you do masking/mapping/zoning between VPLEX and your array by hand for the VPLEX best practice availability. That should leave ViPR only requesting Cinder to make additional luns and add them to existing visibility components, and ViPR will take care of multipathing between hosts and VPLEX.

I am overall not 100% sure how VP will play when it has both VPLEX and 3rd party block arrays. I did not encounter that situation personally.

Hi velik,

            I have checked my ViPR environment,and followed your suggestion.

ViPR VP Pool Setup w/ 3rd party block arrays

Pre-Requisites:

• OpenStack Cinder, installed, configured, tested, discovered by ViPR
• Physical array showing in ViPR, with pool, and a single DEFAULT port displaying
• Follow http://www.emc.com/techpubs/vipr/ui_add_storage_third_party_block-1.htm to configure the port
  • requires ViPR CLI.
    • you can install it on your host, or use already installed CLI on ViPR VMs (use SSH client, use ViPR root username/password) @ /opt/storageos/cli/bin.
    • requires authentication, use command
      • /opt/storageos/cli/bin/viprcli authenticate -hostname [VIPR IP] -u [root username] -d [any place on filesystem, can use /tmp]
      • the "-hostname [VIPR IP]" piece must be repeated with every command issued, unless ENV variable is set (see CLI installation guide)

Virtual Array:

     In ViPR, follow regular steps to define a VA, add your 3rd party system to it. You might need to create IP network if iSCSI or manually add FC network. You might have to manually add physical array and even thin pool that you discovered.

Virtual Pool:

     In ViPR, follow regular steps to define a VP.

     MAKE SURE:

• • focus on hardware tab
    • System Type: select 3rd party array
    • Protocols: select the right protocol, options should show up
  • focus on "san multi path"
    • min/max/paths per init - MUST ALL BE 1.  otherwise your thin pool will not show up on the bottom.
      • this is because Cinder has no northbound APIs for ViPR to control or learn total # of paths created, and it needs to be separately configured for multi pathing.

I find that when I create virtual pool ,I can select the virtual array that I have created ,but I can not select the protocol,I can not see the options,By the way ,I downloaded the ViPR 2.0 software for free from EMC website on August 2014

Sunrui,

the expectation with 3rd party arrays are about the following:

- you should be able to create a Virtual Array without much difficulty

- you will encounter complications picking the right set of options to get 3rd party physical pools to show up in the Virtual Pool you attempted to create.

I suppose you followed my recommendations on ECN post, which is good, however instructions might be too complex or not good enough, and now you are having this difficulty. Try to read instructions again. Make 100% sure that when you were creating Virtual Array, you did NOT use "Add Storage Array" button. Instead you clicked "select storage ports" link and added specific ports. Make sure that your array port that you pick is on the network. And has WWN (3rd party arrays, without CLI intervention, do not have WWN for their DEFAULT port).

Try to eliminate VPLEX out of the picture, and just try to create a VP with your 3rd party array. Test basic direct provisioning. Once you establish that it works, then you bring in VPLEX and complicate the setup.