User guide

Technical white paper | HP Enterprise Virtual Array Storage and VMware vSphere 4.x and 5.x configuration best practices
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Figure 9. HP EVA with MPX200 Multifunction Router
The HP EVA P6000 1GbE iSCSI Module more commonly referred to as the 1GbE iSCSI Module as shown in Figure 7 provides
each EVA controller with 4 1GbE ports or a total of 8 iSCSI ports per array.
The HP EVA P6000 10GbE iSCSI Module as shown in Figure 8 enables 2 10GbE iSCSI ports on each controller or a total of 4
iSCSI ports per array.
The MPX200 Multifunction Router enables a wide range of connectivity options. The MPX200 offers 2 built-in 1GbE ports,
and an additional 2 1GbE ports with the optional 1GbE blade or 2 10GbE ports with the optional 10GbE blade. Additionally
the MPX200 has 2 8Gb Fibre Channel ports used for FC SAN connectivity to the FC array(s) that the MPX200 is providing
iSCSI connectivity for. An HP EVA connects to the MPX200 via Fibre Channel fabric and exports LUNs for iSCSI access through
the MPX front-end iSCSI ports. Up to 4 EVAs can connect in this fashion to a single MPX200.
As shown in Figure 9, MPX200 configurations are typically deployed with a minimum of 2 MPX200 Multifunction Routers for
redundancy.
In order to efficiently and appropriately attach a vSphere SAN via iSCSI to HP EVA Storage it is critical to understand the inner
workings of the MPX200 and 1GbE iSCSI Module and more specifically how they expose iSCSI targets to hosts for access.
Figures 10 and 11 show high-level architecture diagrams of the internals of the HP EVA with 1GbE iSCSI Module and 10GbE
iSCSI Module options. The basic architecture is comprised of three layers:
• EVA Controllers
• Mezz: LUN groups and iSCSI targets
• Front end GbE and FC ports