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Use Case Study: Using Active System For VMware Cluster Environment Configuration

Keep in mind IQN names have a specified format and it is recommended to maintain this format to

avoid issues when customizing your iSCSI initiators in ESXi. Keep a record of the IQN names assigned to

each of the shared storage volumes as they will be required later when the iSCSI connections are

configured on each of the ESXi hosts.

IQN Naming Specification

Figure 3.

EqualLogic Multipathing Extension Module (MEM)

VMware vSphere provides the Pluggable Storage Architecture (PSA), which enables you to configure

multipathing for high availability and increased performance. The modular design of the architecture

accepts third-party multipathing plugins that enable enhanced functionality specific to storage device

models. When using EqualLogic storage with VMware, Dell recommends also utilizing the EqualLogic

Multipathing Extension Module (MEM). MEM provides the following enhancements to the existing

VMware multipathing functionality:

 Increased bandwidth

 Reduced network latency

 Automatic connection management

 Automatic load balancing across multiple active paths

MEM and the full associated documentation can be obtained from the Dell EqualLogic support website

at https://support.equallogic.com/secure/login.aspx. Additional configuration documentation may be

obtained from Dell Tech Center at

http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/storage/w/wiki/3615.rapidequallogic-

configuration-portal-by-sis.aspx. MEM needs to be installed and configured on each host via the

vSphere CLI after you have both ESX running on the host, and deployed the host via ASM. Each host will

need to be placed in maintenance mode to install and configure MEM.

Infrastructure Setup Using Active System

Once you have completed the necessary pre-requisites and have deployed Active System Manager in

your environment, you may proceed with using Active System Manager to configure the infrastructure

required to deploy a VMware cluster. First, Active System Manager will be used to discover the chassis,

update all of the device firmware to a baseline shipped with Active System Manager, and configure the

fabric networking. In this example, three servers will be configured to boot from the ESXi image

preinstalled on their SD cards. You will install MEM on each host and use it to configure your storage

networking. Each host will be set up to provide two iSCSI connections, one on fabric A1 and one on

fabric A2 which will be used for the shared data volumes required by the cluster. Each host will also be

configured to split the ports on the fabric B1 and B2 CNAs into four partitions respectively. Each of

these partitions will be used to support a different redundant network required by the host or VMs (for