Storage Implementation in vSphere® 5.0

Storage Implementation in vSphere® 5.0

by Mostafa Khalil
Released August 2012
Publisher(s): VMware Press
ISBN: 9780132842228

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Book description

THE ONLY AUTHORITATIVE, COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO VSPHERE STORAGE IMPLEMENTATION AND MANAGEMENT

Effective VMware virtualization storage planning and management has become crucial–but it can be extremely complex. Now, the leading VMware expert on storage completely demystifies the "black box" of vSphere storage and provides illustrated, step-by-step procedures for performing every key task associated with it. You’ll gain the deep understanding you need to make better storage decisions, solve problems, and keep problems from occurring in the first place.

Mostafa Khalil presents techniques based on years of personal experience helping customers troubleshoot storage in their vSphere production environments. With more experience than anyone else in the field, he combines expert guidelines, insights for better architectural design, best practices for both planning and management, common configuration details, and deep dives into both vSphere and third-party storage.

Storage Implementation in vSphere® 5.0 fully explains each storage connectivity choice and protocol supported by VMware, introduces Pluggable Storage Architecture (PSA), and shows how to build on PSA with multipathing, failover, and ALUA. It thoroughly introduces Storage Virtualization Devices (SVDs) and VMDirectPath I/O, and shows how to drive powerful improvements in performance, flexibility, and manageability with VMFS 5 and VAAI.

COVERAGE INCLUDES

  • Understanding how FC, FCoE, and iSCSI interact with VMware vSphere 5

  • Implementing specific VMware capabilities on storage hardware from each leading vendor

  • Avoiding, recognizing, and fixing misconfigurations and other problems

  • Using third-party MPIO plug-ins certified with vSphere 5 and PSA

  • Maximizing availability through multipathing and failover

  • Implementing fixed and round-robin multipathing on arrays with ALUA support

  • Monitoring and optimizing virtual storage performance

  • Managing vSphere-compatible file systems: VMFS and NFS

  • Taking full advantage of VMDirectPath I/O

  • Implementing heterogeneous storage configurations

  • Presenting abstracted storage through virtual disks and Raw Device Mappings (RDMs)

  • Using VMFS 5 to simplify management and improve scalability in large-scale environments

  • Sharing storage and migrating more easily across multiple VMware vSphere instances

  • Optimizing storage performance with VAAI-compliant devices

    • Mostafa Khalil, Senior Staff Engineer with VMware Global Support Services, specializes in storage integration for virtual environments. He has worked for VMware for 13 years and supported all VMware virtualization products since Workstation for Linux 1.0 beta. Khalil has worked on most enterprise storage vendors’ solutions and received engineering-level training for many of them. He has presented at every VMworld, and at VMware Partner Exchange, VMware User Group, and USENIX.

    ISBN-13: 978-0-321-79993-7

    ISBN-10: 0-321-79993-3

    Table of contents

    1. Title Page
    2. Copyright Page
    3. VMware Press
    4. Dedication Page
    5. Contents At A Glance
    6. Contents
    7. Preface
    8. Acknowledgments
    9. About the Author
    10. We Want to Hear from You!
    11. Reader Services
    12. Part I. Storage Protocols and Block Devices
      1. Chapter 1. Storage Types
        1. History of Storage
      2. Chapter 2. Fibre Channel Storage Connectivity
        1. SCSI Standards and Protocols
        2. Summary
      3. Chapter 3. FCoE Storage Connectivity
        1. FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet)
        2. FCoE Initialization Protocol
        3. FCoE Initiators
        4. Overcoming Ethernet Limitations
        5. Protocols Required for FCoE
        6. 802.1p Tag
        7. Hardware FCoE Adapters
        8. How SW FCoE Is Implemented in ESXi 5
        9. Configuring FCoE Network Connections
        10. Enabling Software FCoE Adapter
        11. Removing or Disabling a Software FCoE Adapter
        12. Troubleshooting FCoE
        13. Parting Tips
        14. Summary
      4. Chapter 4. iSCSI Storage Connectivity
        1. iSCSI Protocol
        2. Summary
      5. Chapter 5. vSphere Pluggable Storage Architecture (PSA)
        1. Native Multipathing
        2. Storage Array Type Plug-in (SATP)
        3. Path Selection Plugin (PSP)
        4. Third-Party Plug-ins
        5. Multipathing Plugins (MPPs)
        6. Anatomy of PSA Components
        7. I/O Flow Through PSA and NMP
        8. Listing Multipath Details
        9. Claim Rules
        10. MP Claim Rules
        11. Plug-in Registration
        12. SATP Claim Rules
        13. Modifying PSA Plug-in Configurations Using the UI
        14. Modifying PSA Plug-ins Using the CLI
        15. Summary
      6. Chapter 6. ALUA
        1. ALUA Definition
        2. Summary
      7. Chapter 7. Multipathing and Failover
        1. What Is a Path?
        2. Where Is the Active Path?
        3. LUN Discovery and Path Enumeration
        4. Sample LUN Discovery and Path Enumeration Log Entries
        5. Factors Affecting Multipathing
        6. Failover Triggers
        7. Path States
        8. Path Selection Plug-ins
        9. When and How to Change the Default PSP
        10. PDL and APD
        11. Path Ranking
        12. Summary
      8. Chapter 8. Third-Party Multipathing I/O Plug-ins
        1. MPIO Implementations on vSphere 5
        2. EMC PowerPath/VE 5.7
        3. Hitachi Dynamic Link Manager (HDLM)
        4. Dell EqualLogic PSP Routed
        5. Summary
      9. Chapter 9. Using Heterogeneous Storage Configurations
        1. What Is a “Heterogeneous” Storage Environment?
        2. Scenarios of Heterogeneous Storage
        3. ESXi 5 View of Heterogeneous Storage
        4. Summary
      10. Chapter 10. Using VMDirectPath I/O
        1. What Is VMDirectPath?
        2. Which I/O Devices Are Supported?
        3. VMDirectPath I/O Configuration
        4. Practical Examples of VM Design Scenarios Utilizing VMDirectPath I/O
        5. What About vmDirectPath Gen. 2?
        6. Troubleshooting VMDirectPath I/O
        7. Summary
      11. Chapter 11. Storage Virtualization Devices (SVDs)
        1. SVD Concept
        2. Summary
    13. Part II. File Systems
      1. Chapter 12. VMFS Architecture
        1. History of VMFS
        2. Summary
      2. Chapter 13. Virtual Disks and RDMs
        1. The Big Picture
        2. Virtual Disks
        3. Creating Virtual Disks Using the UI
        4. Creating Virtual Disks Using vmkfstools
        5. Raw Device Mappings
        6. Listing RDM Properties
        7. Virtual Storage Adapters
        8. Virtual Machine Snapshots
        9. Snapshot Operations
        10. Reverting to Snapshot
        11. Linked Clones
        12. Summary
      3. Chapter 14. Distributed Locks
        1. Basic Locking
        2. Summary
      4. Chapter 15. Snapshot Handling
        1. What Is a Snapshot?
        2. What Is a Replica?
        3. What Is a Mirror?
        4. VMFS Signature
        5. Effects of Snapshots on VMFS Signature
        6. How to Handle VMFS Datastore on Snapshot LUNs
        7. Resignature
        8. Force Mount
        9. Sample Script to Force-Mount All Snapshots on Hosts in a Cluster
        10. Summary
      5. Chapter 16. VAAI
        1. What Is VAAI?
        2. VAAI Primitives
        3. Full Copy Primitive (XCOPY)
        4. Block Zeroing Primitive (WRITE_SAME)
        5. Hardware Accelerated Locking Primitive (ATS)
        6. Thin Provisioned APIs
        7. NAS VAAI Primitives
        8. Enabling and Disabling Primitives
        9. VAAI Plug-ins and VAAI Filter
        10. Listing Registered Filter and VAAI Plug-ins
        11. Listing VAAI Filters and Plug-ins Configuration
        12. Listing VAAI vmkernel Modules
        13. Identifying VAAI Primitives Supported by a Device
        14. Displaying Block Device VAAI I/O Stats Using ESXTOP
        15. The VAAI T10 Standard Commands
        16. Troubleshooting VAAI Primitives
        17. Summary
    14. Index
    15. Add Page

    Product information

    • Title: Storage Implementation in vSphere® 5.0
    • Author(s): Mostafa Khalil
    • Release date: August 2012
    • Publisher(s): VMware Press
    • ISBN: 9780132842228