Release Notes

Deploying the MEM
6 Configuring and Installing the PS Series Multipathing Extension Module for VMware vSphere and PS Series | TR1074
2 Deploying the MEM
Deploying the MEM consists of two steps:
1. Configuring a vSwitch for iSCSI multipathing
2. Installing the MEM
The entire process of creating the multipathing-compatible vSwitch and installing the MEM is quick and
efficient. Once deployed, it provides both new and existing ESXi hosts with increased performance to PS
Series storage resources.
2.1 Deployment considerations and requirements
The MEM has the following requirements:
• VMware vSphere ESXi with Standard licensing (see Table 1)
• vSphere Command-Line Interface (CLI) or vSphere Management Assistant (vMA) compatible with
above version of ESXi
• Compatible PS Series array firmware (refer to the release notes on eqlsupport.dell.com — login
required)
Prior to deploying the MEM, complete the following steps:
1. Place the ESXi host(s) in maintenance mode.
2. Download and install either the VMware vMA or vSphere CLI. Refer to VMware Documentation to
install and configure these tools.
3. Download the EqualLogic Multipathing Extension Module for VMware from eqlsupport.dell.com (login
required). The download is a zip archive named EqualLogic-ESX-Multipathing-Module.zip.
4. Unpack the zip archive files:
- MEM-Release_Notes.pdf
- MEM-User_Guide.pdf
- README.txt
- setup.pl
- dell-eql-mem-esx<vSphere_version>-<release version>.zip
Note: Do not extract dell-eql-mem-esx<vSphere_version>-<release version>.zip. It is a vSphere Installation
Bundle (VIB) offline bundle.
5. If using the vMA, upload setup.pl and the VIB offline bundle to the vMA.
6. Retain the MEM-Release_Notes.pdf, MEM-User_Guide.pdf (EqualLogic Multipathing Extension
Module Installation and User Guide), and README.txt files for reference.
2.2 Deployment considerations for iSCSI connection count
The MEM provides increased bandwidth and lower latency access to PS Series storage. This performance
benefit is achieved through leveraging several behaviors that are unique to the PS Series peer storage
architecture. It is important to understand how MEM achieves performance gains, and the potential impact on
storage if it is not deployed.