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Technical white paper | HP Enterprise Virtual Array Storage and VMware vSphere 4.x and 5.x configuration best practices
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In a direct-connect environment, the same principles can be achieved with two more HBA or HBA ports; however, the
configuration is slightly different, as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4. EVA/vSphere 4.x and 5.x direct-connect topology
If the direct-connect configuration were to use two rather than four HBA ports, there would be a one-to-one relationship
between every HBA and controller. Thus, a controller failover would result in an HBA failover and vice versa, creating a
configuration that is not ideal.
In order to implement the recommended topology shown in Figure 3, all vSphere hosts must have their EVA host profiles
set to VMware in Command View EVA, as shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5. EVA host profile for a vSphere host
Note
When configuring VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) with an EVA array, all vSphere hosts must be set to VMware. However,
the VCB proxy host, which is a Microsoft® Windows® server attached to the EVA, must be set to Microsoft Windows
(Windows Server 2003) or Microsoft Windows 2008 (Windows Server 2008).