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13 Posts
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July 23rd, 2017 13:00
Vipr Export Group creation at two VPLEX Clusters in a Metro configruation
Hello experts,
Looking for some guidance.
Out of 4 hosts in a VMware Esxi Cluster, two hosts are connected to VPLEX Cluster 1 and other two hosts are connected to VPLEX Cluster 2 in a VPLEX Metro environment. Customer don't want to zone hosts to remote VPLEX due to bandwidth issues. When I tried ViPR Virtual array with automatic zoning and Virtual pool enabled with Cross connect, ViPR creating zoning between hosts and remote VPLEX. Different HLU number assigned in each VPLEX cluster storage View on a datastore creation order.
I noticed the below statement from "Vipr 3.6 - Ingest Services for Existing Environments Guide rev 2" would like to confirm "Some connectivity to both VPLEX clusters exists within the cluster of hosts". Can someone help me to understand connectivity requirement from cluster hosts to each VPLEX cluster?
From document:
"A cluster of hosts must have a subset of initiators connected to each VPLEX cluster for successful ingestion of any cross-connected export configuration. However, a host or a subset of hosts can have all their initiators exclusively connected to one VPLEX cluster or the other, as long as some connectivity to both VPLEX clusters exists within the cluster of hosts. Additionally, the existing connectivity must satisfy the SAN multipath constraints of the virtual pool the user has selected for ingestion "
EMC ViPR Controller
Version 3.6
Ingest Services for Existing Environments Guide
302-003-714
REV 02
sathyaprakash.mohandass
41 Posts
1
July 24th, 2017 07:00
Hi,
For any Host clusters(2 or any at each site) connected to VPlex Metro setup , ViPR will create two export groups in its DB. Site A hosts connect to site A VPlex and site B hosts connect to site B VPlex. This according to VPlex is not a cross-connect. But this according to the terminology of ViPR is called cross connect. This kind of setup does require the host clusters to have connectivity between each other. But does not mandate VPLex clusters to be on same fabric on each site (provided the clusters can talk to each other for WAN connectivity).
So, you will need to check the "Automatic cross-connect" option under the High availability under Virtual-pool for this setup to work for distributed devices pool. But for local virtual-pool, this is not required.
ssss-i_QXD
13 Posts
0
July 24th, 2017 08:00
Hey Sathya,
Thanks for the response. I agree that ViPR Cross connect create two Export Group, one per site. When I tried a Virtual array with automatic zoning enabled ViPR creating new zone from one side host to other side VPLEX, but customer don't want to do that. Both sites are on same fabric. Host can communicate each other as they are part of VPLEX Cluster.
I hope Virtual array manual zoning will not create zones across sites but loosing switch level automation advantages.
sathyaprakash.mohandass
41 Posts
0
July 31st, 2017 06:00
Hi,
The Zoning happens based on the Virtual-Array. Please verify that the Virtual-Array of Cluster-1 VPlex has only the fron-end and back-end ports and the Storage-arrays ports of only the Cluster-1 side. The Cluster-2 Virtual-Array should contain only the Vplex and Array ports of only the Cluster-2 side.
If this condition is met, the zoning should not happen across the sites (VPlex cross connect).
Note: You will need the (ViPR cross-connect) option enabled.
If above conditions are met and still if you see issues, i would suggest opening a support ticket.