HPE Storage Users Group

Hi, which is the best practice zoning 3PAR with HP UX,Linux,Windows and VMWARE.
we have a 3par with 2 nodes- 2 Controller for each node - 2 Ports for Controller.

for HP UX, linux and Windows a enginner from HP, tell me, like best practice, create a zone with HOST( WWN ) and only 1 port for each node. its correct?
Example HOST : 0,1,1 and 1:2,1

and VMWARE tell me HOST ( WWN ) and 4 Ports
Example HOST: 0,1,1, 0,2,1, 1,3,1 , 1,4,1


Please help me

When you say 2 nodes each with 2 controllers, are you talking about a 7400 4 node?

Each controller has 2 ports, one of those ports will go to each fabric (fabric a and b)

So each host will also have 2 ports and will go to each fabric aswell.

If you have 2 controllers you would create a zone for each server and user single initiator (the server port) and multi target (the two 3par ports)

If you have 4 controllers you would normally only zone a server to 2 of the nodes, not all 4 nodes, to reduce the number of connections as you don't really need more than 2 connections to the San, you should make sure the 2 connections are to the same controller pair though (in a 4 mode system like the 7400 that would be nodes 0 and 1 or 2 and 3)

Hope that helps.

Yes its a 7400 with 4 nodes.
Some considerations for VMWARE ???
many thanks

Depends on the number of hosts really, if it was only 5 I'd present it to all 4 controllers, if it's 20 I'd only go with each host seeing two controllers.

Nothing special to thing about for vmware though.

So, example
you should make sure the 2 connections are to the same controller pair though (in a 4 mode system like the 7400 that would be nodes 0 and 1 or 2 and 3)
Zone 1: Host01Hba1 -> (Node 0,Port 1)
Zone 2: Host01Hba2 -> (Node 1,Port 1)

all nodes are independent???

Thanks for your support

Davidkn wrote:Depends on the number of hosts really, if it was only 5 I'd present it to all 4 controllers, if it's 20 I'd only go with each host seeing two controllers.

Nothing special to thing about for vmware though.

Actually VMware has a limit of 1024 paths per host so you do have to consider that. We had to change our exchange 2013 disk layout to minimize the number of paths used as we already had ~800 paths already in use and we were rolling out 3 servers with a dozen databases and a dozen archives which would have put us over 1024 if we had done one one lun per database/archive like we did for 2010 (24*3*8 paths per lun).

What say 3PAR best practices and 3PAR functionnalities.

BP says you must zone a host with a node cluster
e.g: 1 host with node 0/1 or node 2/3

3PAR Port Persistent...
Host Hba 1 > Node 0 Port 0 / Node 1 Port 0
Host Hba 2 > Node 0 Port 1 / Node 1 Port 1

HP-UX itself is a bit odd in how it handles Persistent Ports, so I would make sure to read the HP-UX Implementation Guide (particularly page 13).

There seems to be some confusion in the above posts—it should be noted that following best practices, you create pairs of links, with each link on a separate fabric. Assuming you have a typical dual-fabric setup, you would connect all the odd-numbered ports to the first fabric, and all the even-numbered ports to the second fabric. Then each host will connect one link in each pair over each fabric.

Here's my rules when setting up pairs of links:
* Pick a node pair, either nodes 0&1 or 2&3 (NOT nodes 0&2, 0&3, 1&2, or 1&3)
* In that node pair, pick an odd port for your A fabric, then an even port for your B fabric on the other node in the pair

Example (assuming a 7400 4-node, with only on-board FC ports):
* 3PAR ports 0:1:1, 1:1:1, 2:1:1, 3:1:1 connect to Fabric A
* 3PAR ports 0:1:2, 1:1:2, 2:1:2, 3:1:2 connect to Fabric B
* I pick to use 3PAR nodes 2&3 for my node pair
* In that node pair, I pick port 3:1:1 for my fabric A connection
* Because of the above choices, I now have to pick 2:1:2 for my fabric B connection. If I had more ports available, I could pick any available even-numbered port on node 2.

If HBA1 connects to Fabric A, and HBA2 connects to Fabric B, then:
* HBA1 -> Fabric A -> 3:1:1
* HBA2 -> Fabric B -> 2:1:2

With this, I'm creating two zones, one on each fabric. Because my FC switches support NPIV and I zone by WWPN, I can transparently use Persistent Ports—which fails a port to its identically-numbered partner in on the other node. In the above scenario, if port 3:1:1 fails, the WWPN will move to port 2:1:1, and because I zone by WWPN (not by switch port), I don't have to create a second zone for HBA1 to 2:1:1. If Fabric A fails, well, that's why you have Fabric B.

If I wanted to add more links to the host, I would then follow the same procedure above on the other node pair. For example:
* HBA3 -> Fabric A -> 0:1:1
* HBA4 -> Fabric B -> 1:1:2

In my environment, VMware, Windows, Solaris and Linux all seem to handle this design just fine.

That's exactly what I said, but with much less text

afidel wrote:

Davidkn wrote:Depends on the number of hosts really, if it was only 5 I'd present it to all 4 controllers, if it's 20 I'd only go with each host seeing two controllers.

Nothing special to thing about for vmware though.

Actually VMware has a limit of 1024 paths per host so you do have to consider that. We had to change our exchange 2013 disk layout to minimize the number of paths used as we already had ~800 paths already in use and we were rolling out 3 servers with a dozen databases and a dozen archives which would have put us over 1024 if we had done one one lun per database/archive like we did for 2010 (24*3*8 paths per lun).

Which is why I said it depends on the number of hosts....