Release Notes

Site preparation, requirements, and recommendations
6 Dell EMC SC Series and VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes Best Practices | 3161-BP-SC
2 Site preparation, requirements, and recommendations
When deploying Virtual Volumes, it is strongly encouraged to adhere to the following requirements and
recommendations:
2.1 Requirements
• Dell SCOS 7.0 and supported SAN fabric such as Fibre Channel or iSCSI (VMware vSphere
®
software ISCSI only).
• Dell Storage Manager (DSM) 2016 R1 (R2 with external VASA Provider database for production
environments), with incoming TCP 3034 allowed.
• VMware vSphere 6.0 infrastructure with Standard, Enterprise, or Enterprise Plus licensing.
• The Data Collector hosting the VASA Provider must have a static IP address or a dynamically
assigned IP address which does not change. A corresponding Host (A) record should also be
configured in DNS so that the VASA Provider may be registered using a FQDN.
• The Data Collector hosting the VASA Provider must be highly available and installed in a virtual
machine with VMware vSphere High Availability (HA) protection enabled. VMware FT is an alternative
option which can provide faster failover during an unplanned outage of the VASA Provider.
• The Data Collector hosting the VASA Provider should be deployed on a SAN volume which is
configured with a high frequency of array-based snapshots to protect vVol metadata stored on the
internal HSQL database.
• A Data Collector must not be deployed on a vVol which it is a VASA Provider for.
• An external database should be used in production environments to protect VASA Provider metadata.
The external database must remain available and have redundant network paths to maintain VASA
Provider operations availability.
• The external database for the Data Collector must not be deployed on a vVol which it is a VASA
Provider for.
• A VASA Provider may be registered with one VMware vCenter
™
Server only. Multiple vCenter
Servers cannot be registered with the same VASA Provider.
• A vCenter Server may be registered with multiple VASA Providers. However, multiple VASA
Providers cannot represent the same SC Series array to a single vCenter Server.
• The Data Collector hosting the VASA Provider may have up to a maximum of 50ms round trip
network latency between it and the vCenter Server and a maximum of 10ms round trip network
latency between it and vVol-enabled arrays.
2.2 Recommendations
• Install the Data Collector hosting the VASA Provider in an isolated management cluster
• Install the Data Collector hosting the VASA Provider in a VMware vSphere virtual machine with Fault
Tolerance (FT) protection enabled
• Size the SC Series configuration appropriately to support the intended scale of the vVol environment.
This may include flash storage to minimize the latency in creating and binding swap vVols associated
with virtual machine power-on operations.
In addition, deployment and operational best practices should be followed for each piece of infrastructure as
they are individually critical to the successful deployment and operation of Virtual Volumes. This includes but
may not be limited to guidance found in the Dell Storage Manager Administrator’s Guide as well as the Dell
EMC SC Series: VMware vSphere 5.x-6.x Best Practices.