HP vPars and Integrity Virtual Machines V6.1 Administrator Guide

5 Using NPIV with vPars and Integrity VM
NPIV allows creation of multiple virtual Fibre Channel ports (VFCs) over one physical port (PFC)
on a Virtualization Services Platform (VSP). The VSP serves as the management platform for the
vPars and virtual machines. Each of these virtual ports should be created with a unique World
Wide Name (WWN) to identify it, just like the unique embedded WWN by which a physical port
is identified. The NPIV feature is about creating such virtual ports over a physical port on the VSP
and then allocating them as resources to the virtual environments (vPars and VMs). This means that
the resource that is added to the vPar or VM is a virtual Host Bus Adapter or virtual HBA (vHBA).
The VM or vPar then discovers targets and LUNs behind the vHBA using the same mechanism that
is used on a standalone system to discover targets and LUNs behind a physical HBA. As in the
case of a standalone system, a vPar or VM using NPIV will automatically discover new targets and
LUNs behind the vHBA. With NPIV, VMs and vPars can support two kinds of device – legacy
shared I/O using AVIO (AVIO LUNs), and the LUNs seen with the vHBA (NPIV HBAs). Unlike
legacy shared storage, the NPIV LUNs need not be visible by the VSP and therefore, the LUNs that
the vPar or VM will see behind the vHBA can be managed and provisioned the same way as on
a standalone system. Note that NPIV devices can co-exist with legacy AVIO devices in the same
vPar or VM.
5.1 NPIV can satisfy these requirements
The following requirements can be met using the NPIV feature:
• Storage isolation between vPar/VM and the VSP, and among vPars.
• Isolation of I/O traffic across vPars/VMs and VSP.
• Running of applications that require un-virtualized device access on the vPar.
• Monitoring the server/storage environment using charge back applications.
• Streamlining vPar and VM migrations.
5.2 Dependencies and prerequisites
The NPIV functionality requires a hardware I/O stack which explicitly supports NPIV, from the
HBAs, through the interconnect modules and SAN fabric and on to the individual Fibre Channel
devices. The supported HBAs include, but are not be limited to:
• Qlogic QMH2562 8Gb FB HBA for HP Blade System C-Class (451871-B21)
• HP single-port 8Gb PCIe Fibre Channel HBA (AH400A)
• HP dual-port 8Gb PCIe Fibre Channel HBA (AH401A)
Supported I/O Interconnect Modules include but may not be limited to:
• HP BLc Virtual Connect 8Gb 24-Port Fibre Channel Module for c-Class BladeSystem
(466482-B21)
• HP BLc Virtual Connect 8Gb 20-Port Fibre Channel Module for c-Class BladeSystem
(572018-B21)
• HP BLc 4Gb Virtual Connect Fibre Channel Module for c-Class BladeSystem (409513-B22)
For the SAN fabric, refer to your vendor’s documentation to determine support. HP supports NPIV
with its 4 GB and 8 GB SAN switches.
5.3 NPIV – supported limits
Table 9 (page 54) lists the supported limits associated with NPIV in vPars and Integrity VM V6.1.
5.1 NPIV can satisfy these requirements 53