EMC VSPEX with EMC VPLEX for VMware vsphere 5.1

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Design and Implementation Guide

Abstract

This document describes the EMC VSPEX Proven Infrastructure solution for private cloud deployments with EMC VPLEX Metro, VMware vSphere, and EMC® VNX® for up to 125 virtual machines.

June, 2013

EMC

®

VSPEX

™

with EMC

®

VPLEX

™

for

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EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice.

The information in this publication is provided as is. EMC Corporation makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the information in this publication, and specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Use, copying, and distribution of any EMC software

described in this publication requires an applicable software license.

EMC2, EMC, and the EMC logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. For the most up-to-date regulatory document for your product line, go to the technical documentation and advisories section on the EMC Online Support website.

EMC® VSPEX™ with EMC® VPLEX™ for VMware vSphere® 5.1 Part Number H11878

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List of Figures

Figure 1: Private Cloud components for VSPEX with VPLEX Local... 12

Figure 2: Private Cloud components for a VSPEX/VPLEX Metro solution ... 13

Figure 3: VPLEX delivers zero downtime ... 15

Figure 4: Application Mobility within a datacenter ... 16

Figure 5: Application and Data Mobility Example ... 17

Figure 6: Application and Data Mobility Example ... 18

Figure 7: Highly Available Infrastructure Example ... 20

Figure 8: VPLEX Local architecture for Traditional Single Site Environments ... 22

Figure 9: VPLEX Metro architecture for Distributed Environments ... 23

Figure 10: VSPEX deployed with VPLEX Metro using distributed volumes ... 24

Figure 11: Failure scenarios without VPLEX Witness ... 26

Figure 12: Failure scenarios with VPLEX Witness ... 26

Figure 13: VSPEX deployed with VPLEX Metro configured with 3rd_{Site VPLEX Witness ... 27}

Figure 15: Storage Layout for 125 Virtual Machine Private Cloud Proven Infrastructure ... 33

Figure 16: Place VNX LUNs into VPLEX Storage Group ... 51

Figure 17: VPLEX Local System Status and Login Screen ... 52

Figure 18: Provisioning Storage ... 52

Figure 19: EZ-Provisioning Step 1: Claim Storage and Create Virtual Volumes ... 53

Figure 20: EZ-Provisioning Step 2: Register Initiators ... 53

Figure 21: EZ-Provisioning Step 3: Create Storage View ... 53

Figure 22: EZ-Provisioning ... 56

Figure 23: Create Virtual Volumes- Select Array... 56

Figure 24: Create Virtual Volumes- Select Storage Volumes ... 57

Figure 25: Create Distributed Volumes- Select Mirrors ... 58

Figure 26: Create Distributed Volumes- Select Consistency Group ... 59

Figure 27: EZ-Provisioning- Register Initiators ... 59

Figure 28: View Unregistered Initiator-ports ... 60

Figure 29: View Unregistered Initiator-ports ... 61

Figure 30: EZ-Provisioning- Create Storage View ... 61

Figure 31: Create Storage View- Select Initiators ... 62

Figure 32: Create Storage View- Select Ports ... 62

Figure 33: Create Storage View- Select Virtual Volumes ... 63

Figure 34: VPLEX Metro System Status Page ... 66

Figure 35: VPLEX Consistency Group created for Virtual Volumes... 67

Figure 36: VPLEX Distributed Devices ... 67

Figure 37: VPLEX Storage View for ESXi Hosts ... 68

Figure 38: Batch Migration, Create Migration Plan ... 73

Figure 39: Batch Migration, Start Migration ... 74

Figure 40: Batch Migration, Monitor Progress ... 74

Figure 41: Batch Migrations, Change Migration State... 75

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List of Tables

Table 1: VPLEX Components ... 24

Table 2: Hardware Resources for Storage ... 32

Table 3: IPv4 Networking Information ... 35

Table 4: Metadata Backup Information ... 35

Table 5: SMTP details to configure event notifications ... 36

Table 6: SNMP information ... 37

Table 7: Certificate Authority (CA) and Host Certificate information ... 37

Table 8: Product Registration Information ... 37

Table 9: VPLEX Metro IP WAN Configuration Information ... 38

Table 10: Cluster Witness Configuration Information ... 39

Table 13: IPv4 Networking Information ... 77

Table 14: Metadata Backup Information ... 77

Table 15: SMTP details to configure event notifications ... 77

Table 16: SNMP information ... 79

Table 17: Certificate Authority (CA) and Host Certificate information ... 79

Table 18: Product Registration Information ... 79

Table 19: IP WAN Configuration Information ... 80

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1. Executive Summary

Businesses face many challenges in delivering application availability, while working within constrained IT budgets. Increased deployment of storage virtualization lowers costs and improves availability, but this alone will not allow businesses to provide the required application access demanded by users. This document provides an overview of VPLEX, the use cases, and how VSPEX with VPLEX solutions provide the continuous availability and mobility mission-critical applications require for 24X7 operations.

This document is divided into sections that give an overview of the VPLEX family, use cases, solution architecture, how VPLEX extends VMware capabilities along with solution

requirements and configuration details.

The EMC® VPLEX™ family versions, Local and Metro, provide continuous availability and non-disruptive data mobility for EMC and non-EMC storage within and across data centers. Additionally, this document will cover the following:

• VMware vSphere makes it simpler and less expensive to provide higher levels of availability for critical business applications. With vSphere, organizations can easily increase the baseline level of availability provided for all applications, as well as provide higher levels of availability more easily and cost-effectively.

• How VPLEX Metro extends VMware vMotion, HA, DRS and FT, stretching the VMware cluster across distance providing solutions that go beyond traditional “Disaster Recovery”.

• Solution requirements for software and hardware, material lists, step-by-step sizing guidance and worksheets, and verified deployment steps to implement a VPLEX solution with VSPEX Private Cloud for VMware vSphere that supports up to 125 Virtual machines.

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2. Background and VPLEX Overview

2.1 Document purpose

This document provides an overview on how to use VPLEX to leverage VSPEX Proven Infrastructure, an explanation on how to modify the architecture for specific engagements, and instructions on how to effectively deploy and monitor the overall system.

This document applies to VSPEX deployed with EMC VPLEX Metro and VPLEX Witness. The details provided in this document are based on the following configurations:

• VPLEX GeoSynchrony 5.1 (patch 4) or higher • VPLEX Metro

• VPLEX Clusters are within 5 milliseconds (ms) of each other for VMware HA (10ms is possible with a VMware Enterprise Plus license)

• VPLEX Witness is deployed to a third failure domain • ESXi and vSphere 5.1 or later are used

• Any qualified pair of arrays (both EMC and non-EMC) listed on the EMC Simple Support Matrix (ESSM) found here:

https://elabnavigator.emc.com/vault/pdf/EMC_VPLEX.pdf

2.2 Target Audience

The readers of this document should be familiar with the VSPEX Proven Infrastructures, have the necessary training and background to install and configure VMware vSphere, EMC® VNX® series storage systems, VPLEX, and associated infrastructure as required by this implementation. External references are provided where applicable, and the readers should be familiar with these documents. After purchase, implementers of this solution should focus on the configuration guidelines of the solution validation phase and the appropriate references and appendices.

2.3 Business Challenges

Most of today’s organizations operate 24X7, with most applications being mission- critical. Continuous availability of these applications to all users is a primary goal of IT. A secondary goal is to have all applications up and running as soon as possible if the applications stop processing. There are hundreds of possibilities that can cause infrastructure to be taken down - from fires, flooding, natural disasters, application failures, or even simple mistakes in the computer room, of which most are outside of IT’s control. Sometimes there are good reasons to take down applications for scheduled maintenance, tech refreshes, load

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applications stop processing. The ultimate goal of the IT organization is to maintain mission critical application availability.

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3. VSPEX with VPLEX Solution

VSPEX with VPLEX utilizing best-of-breed technologies delivers the power, performance and reliability businesses need to be competitive. VSPEX solutions are built with proven best-of-breed technologies to create complete virtualization solutions that enable you to make an informed decision in the hypervisor, server, and networking layers.

Customers are increasingly deploying their business applications on consolidated compute, network, and storage environments. EMC VSPEX Private Cloud using VMware reduces the complexity of configuring every component of a traditional deployment model. With VSPEX the complexity of integration management is reduced while maintaining the application design and implementation options. VPLEX enhances the VSPEX value proposition by adding the continuous availability and non-disruptive data mobility use cases to the VSPEX infrastructure. VPLEX rounds out the VSPEX Data Protection portfolio by providing the ability to:

• Refresh technology non-disruptively within the storage arrays within VSPEX • vMotion virtual machines non-disruptively from one VSPEX system to another

(example, for workload balancing or disaster avoidance)

• Automatically restart virtual machines from one VSPEX to another to deliver a higher level of protection to VMware environments on VSPEX

The following sections describe the VPLEX Local and VPLEX Metro products and how they deliver the value propositions listed above as part of a VSPEX solution.

3.1 VPLEX Local

This solution uses VSPEX Private Cloud for VMware vSphere 5.1 with VPLEX Local to provide simplified management and non-disruptive data mobility between multiple heterogeneous storage arrays within the data center. VPLEX removes physical barriers within the

datacenter. With its unique scale-out architecture, VPLEX’s advanced data caching and distributed cache coherency provide workload resiliency, automatic sharing, balancing and failover of storage domains, and enable local access with predictable service levels.

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Figure 1: Private Cloud components for VSPEX with VPLEX Local

Note: The above image depicts a logical configuration, physically the VPLEX can be hosted within the VSPEX rack.

3.2 VPLEX Metro

The two data center site solution referenced in this document uses VSPEX Private Cloud for VMware vSphere 5.1 with VPLEX Metro to provide simplified management and

non-disruptive data mobility between multiple heterogeneous storage arrays across data centers. VPLEX Metro enhances the capabilities of VMware vMotion, HA, DRS and FT to provide a solution that extends data protection strategies that go beyond traditional

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“Disaster Recovery”. This solution provides a new type of deployment which achieves

continuous availability over distance for today’s enterprise storage and cloud environments. VPLEX Metro provides data access and mobility between two VPLEX clusters within

synchronous distances. This solution builds on the VPLEX Local approach by creating a VPLEX Metro cluster between the two geographically dispersed datacenters. Once deployed, this solution will provide truly available distributed storage volumes over distance and makes VMware technology such as vMotion, HA, DRS and FT even better and easier.

Figure 2: Private Cloud components for a VSPEX/VPLEX Metro solution The above image is a logical configuration depicting 125 VMs with their datastores

stretched across a VMware vSphere 5.1 cluster. This infrastructure will deliver continuous availability for the applications as well as enable non-disruptive workload mobility and balancing. The VPLEX appliances can be physically hosted within the VSPEX racks if space permits.

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3.3 VPLEX Platform Availability and Scaling Summary

VPLEX addresses high-availability and data mobility requirements while scaling to the I/O throughput required for the front-end applications and back-end storage.

Continuous Availability (CA), High-availability (HA), and Data Mobility features are all characteristics of the VPLEX Local and VPLEX Metro solutions outlined in this document. The basic building block of a VPLEX is an engine. To eliminate single points of failure, each VPLEX Engine consists of two Directors. A VPLEX cluster can consist of one, two, or four engines. Each engine is protected by a standby power supply (SPS), and each Fibre Channel switch gets its power through an uninterruptible power supply (UPS). In a dual-engine or quad-dual-engine cluster, the management server also gets power from a UPS. The management server has a public Ethernet port, which provides cluster management services when connected to the customer network.

VPLEX scales both up and out. Upgrades from a single engine to a dual engine cluster as well as from a dual engine to a quad engine are fully supported and are accomplished non-disruptively. This is referred to as scale up. Upgrades from a VPLEX Local to a VPLEX Metro are also supported non-disruptively.

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4. VPLEX Overview

The EMC VSPEX with EMC VPLEX solution represents the next-generation architecture for continuous availability and data mobility for mission-critical applications. This architecture is based on EMC‘s 20+years of expertise in designing; implementing and perfecting

enterprise class intelligent cache and distributed data protection solutions. The combined VSPEX with VPLEX solution provides a complete system architecture capable of supporting up to 125 virtual machines with a redundant server or network topology and highly

available storage within or across geographically dispersed datacenters.

VPLEX addresses three distinct customer requirements:

• Continuous Availability: The ability to create high-availability storage infrastructure across synchronous distances with unmatched resiliency.

• Mobility: The ability to move applications and data across different storage installations—within the same data center, across a campus, or within a geographical region.

• Stretched Clusters across Distance The ability to extend VMware vMotion, HA, DRS and FT outside the data center across distances, ensuring the continuous availability of VSPEX solutions.

4.1 Continuous Availability

EMC VPLEX family provides continuous availability with zero unplanned downtime for applications from within a data center and across data centers at synchronous distances. VPLEX enables users to have the exact same information simultaneously read / write accessible in two locations, delivering the ability to stretch hypervisor clusters, such as VMware across sites. Instead of idle assets at the second site, all infrastructure is utilized in an Active-Active state.

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With VPLEX in place, customers now have infinite flexibility in the area of Data Mobility. This addresses some compelling use cases such as array technology refreshes with no-disruption to the applications or planned downtime. It also enables performance load balancing for customers who want to dynamically move data to a higher performing or higher capacity array without affecting the end users.

4.2 Mobility

EMC VPLEX Local enables the connectivity to heterogeneous storage arrays providing seamless data mobility and the ability to manage storage provisioned from multiple heterogeneous arrays from a single interface within a data center. This provides you with the ability to relocate, share and balance infrastructure resources within a data center.

Figure 4: Application Mobility within a datacenter

VPLEX Metro configurations enable migrations within and across datacenters over synchronous distances. In combination with VMware using vMotion, it allows you to

transparently relocate Virtual Machines and their corresponding applications and data over synchronous distance. This provides you with the ability to relocate, share and balance infrastructure resources between data centers. These capabilities save you money, both in reducing time to do data migrations, and balancing workloads across sites to fully utilize infrastructure at both sites.

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Traditional data migration using array replication or manual data moves, are an expensive, time consuming, and oftentimes risky process. They are often expensive since companies typically are paying someone to do the services work. Migrations can be time consuming as the customer can’t just shut down servers, instead they must work through their business units to identify possible windows to work within that are mostly during nights and

weekends. Migrations can also be risky events if all of the dependencies between

applications aren’t well documented. It is possible that any issues in the migration process may not be able to be remediated until the following maintenance cycle without an outage. VPLEX limits the risk in traditional migrations by having a fully reversible process. If

performance or other issues are discovered when the new storage is put online, the new storage can be taken down and the old storage can continue serving I/O. Due to the ease of migrations with VPLEX, the customer can do the migrations themselves and there are significant services cost savings. Also, new infrastructure can be used immediately with no need to wait for scheduled downtime to begin migrations. There is powerful TCO associated with VPLEX – all future refreshes and migrations are free.

Figure 5: Application and Data Mobility Example

A VPLEX Cluster is a single virtualization I/O group that enables non-disruptive data mobility across the entire cluster. This means that all Directors in a VPLEX cluster have access to all Storage Volumes making this solution what is referred to as an N -1 architecture. This type of architecture allows for multiple director failures without loss of access to data down to a single director.

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During a VPLEX Mobility operation any jobs in progress can be paused or stopped without affecting data integrity. Data Mobility creates a mirror of the source and target devices allowing the user to commit or cancel the job without affecting the actual data. A record of all mobility jobs are maintained until the user purges the list for organizational purposes.

4.3 Stretched Clusters Across Distance

VPLEX Metro extends VMware vMotion, High Availability (HA), Distributed Resource

Scheduler (DRS) and Fault Tolerance (FT) outside the data center across distances, ensuring the continuous availability of VSPEX solutions. Stretching vMotion across datacenters enables non-disruptive load balancing, maintenance, and workload re-location. VMware DRS provides for full utilization of resources across domains.

Figure 6: Application and Data Mobility Example

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Due to its core design, EMC VPLEX Metro provides the perfect foundation for VMware High Availability and Fault Tolerance clustering over distance ensuring simple and transparent deployment of stretched clusters without any added complexity.

VPLEX Metro takes a single block storage device in one location and “distributes” it to provide single disk semantics across two locations. This enables a “distributed” VMFS datastore to be created on that virtual volume. Furthermore, if the layer 2 network has also been “stretched” then a single instance of vSphere (including a single logical datacenter) can now also be “distributed” into more than one location and VMware HA can be enabled for any given vSphere cluster. This is possible since the storage federation layer of the VPLEX is completely transparent to ESXi. It therefore enables the user to add ESXi hosts at two different locations to the same HA cluster. Stretching an HA failover cluster (such as VMware HA) with VPLEX creates a “Federated HA” cluster over distance. This blurs the boundaries between local HA and disaster recovery since the configuration has the automatic restart capabilities of HA combined with the geographical distance typically associated with synchronous DR.

4.5 VPLEX Availability

VPLEX is built on a foundation of scalable and highly available processor engines and is designed to seamlessly scale from small to large configurations. VPLEX resides between the servers and heterogeneous storage assets, and uses a unique clustering architecture that allows servers at multiple data centers to have read/write access to the same data at two locations at the same time. Unique characteristics of this new architecture include:

• Scale-out clustering hardware lets you start small and grow big with predictable service levels

• Advanced data caching utilizes large-scale SDRAM cache to improve performance and reduce I/O latency and array contention

• Distributed cache coherence for automatic sharing, balancing, and failover of I/O across the cluster

• Consistent view of one or more LUNs across VPLEX clusters (within a data center or across synchronous distances) enabling new models of high-availability and workload relocation

With a unique scale-up and scale-out architecture, VPLEX advanced data caching and distributed cache coherency provide continuous availability, workload resiliency, automatic sharing, balancing, and failover of storage domains, and enables both local and remote data access with predictable service levels.

EMC VPLEX has been architected for virtualization enabling federation across VPLEX Clusters. VPLEX Metro supports a maximum 5ms RTT for FC or 10 GigE connectivity. To protect against entire site failure causing application outages, VPLEX uses a VMware Virtual machine located within a separate failure domain to provide a VPLEX Witness

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between VPLEX Clusters that are part of a distributed/federated solution. The VPLEX

Witness, known as Cluster Witness, resides in a third failure domain monitoring both VPLEX Clusters for availability. This third site needs only IP connectivity to the VPLEX sites.

4.6 Storage/Service Availability

Each VPLEX site has a local VPLEX Cluster with physical storage and hosts connected to that VPLEX Cluster only. The VPLEX Clusters themselves are interconnected across the sites to enable federation. A virtual volume is taken from each of the VPLEX Clusters to create a distributed virtual volume. Hosts connected in Site A actively use the storage I/O capability of the storage in Site A; Hosts in Site B actively use the storage I/O capability of the storage in Site B.

Figure 7: Highly Available Infrastructure Example

VPLEX distributed volumes are available from either VPLEX cluster and have the same LUN and storage identifiers when exposed from each cluster, enabling true concurrent

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When using a distributed virtual volume across two VPLEX Clusters, if the storage in one of the sites is lost, all hosts continue to have access to the distributed virtual volume, with no disruption. VPLEX services all read/write traffic through the remote mirror leg at the other site.

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5. Solution Architecture

5.1 Overview

The VSPEX with VPLEX solution using VMware vSphere has been validated for configuration with up to 125 virtual machines.

Figure-8 shows an environment with VPLEX Local only, virtualizing the storage and providing high availability across storage arrays. Since all ESXi servers are able to see VPLEX, VMware vMotion, HA, and DRS are able to seamlessly move and be restarted on all hosts. This configuration is traditional virtualized environment compared to the VPLEX Metro environment which provides high availability within, and across, datacenters.

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Figure-9 characterizes both a traditional infrastructure validated with block -based storage in a single datacenter, and a distributed infrastructure validated with block -based storage federated across two datacenters, where 8 Gb FC carries storage traffic locally, and 10 GbE carries storage, management, and application traffic across datacenter sites

Figure 9: VPLEX Metro architecture for Distributed Environments

5.2 Solution Architecture VPLEX Key Components

This solution adds the following VPLEX technology to the VSPEX Private Cloud for VMware vSphere 5.1 for 125 Virtual Machines solution:

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Table 1: VPLEX Components

Cluster-1 Components Single engine

Directors 2

Redundant Engine SPSs Yes

FE Fibre Channel ports (VS2) 8

BE Fibre Channel ports (VS2) 8

Cache size (VS2 Hardware) 72GB

Management Servers 1

Internal Fibre Channel switches (Local Comm) None

Uninterruptable Power Supplies (UPSs) None

Cluster-2 Components Single engine

Directors 2

Redundant Engine SPSs Yes

FE Fibre Channel ports (VS2) 8

BE Fibre Channel ports (VS2) 8

Cache size (VS2 Hardware) 72GB

Management Servers 1

Internal Fibre Channel switches (Local Comm) None

Uninterruptable Power Supplies (UPSs) None

The figure below shows a high-level physical topology of a VPLEX Metro distributed device. VPLEX Dual and Quad engine options can be found in the Appendix.

Figure 10: VSPEX deployed with VPLEX Metro using distributed volumes

Figure 10 is a physical representation of the logical configuration shown in Figure 9.

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other volume; the only difference being it is now distributed and available in two locations at the same time. Another benefit of this type of architecture is “extreme simplicity” since it is no more difficult to configure a cluster across distance that it is in a single data center. Note: When deploying VPLEX Metro you have the choice to inter-connect your VPLEX Clusters by using either 8GB Fiber Channel or 10GB Ethernet WAN connectivity. When using FC connectivity this can be configured with either a dedicated channel (i.e. separate non merged fabrics) or an ISL based fabric (i.e. where fabrics have been merged across sites). It is assumed that any WAN link will be fully routable between sites with physically

redundant circuits.

Note: It is vital that VPLEX Metro has enough bandwidth between clusters to meet requirements. The Business Continuity Solution Designer (BCSD) tool can be used to validate the design. EMC can assist in the qualification if desired.

https://elabadvisor.emc.com/app/licensedtools/list

For an in-depth technology and architectural understanding of VPLEX Metro, VMware HA, and their interactions, please refer to the VPLEX HA Techbook found here:

http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/technical- documentation/h7113-vplex-architecture-deployment.pdf

5.3 VPLEX Cluster Witness

VPLEX Metro goes beyond the realms of legacy active/passive replication technologies since it can deliver true active/active storage over distance as well as federated availability.

There are three main items that are required to deliver true "Federated Availability". 1. True active/active fibre channel block storage over distance.

2. VPLEX Storage mirroring delivers one view of storage, making data accessible immediately, with no waiting for mirroring to complete. This feature eliminates the need for host based mirroring, saving host CPU cycles.

3. External arbitration to ensure that under all failure conditions automatic recovery is possible.

In the previous sections we have discussed 1 and 2, but now we will look at external arbitration which is enabled by VPLEX Witness.

VPLEX Witness is delivered as a zero cost VMware Virtual Appliance (vApp) which runs on a customer supplied ESXi server, or a public cloud utilizing a VMware virtualized environment. The ESXi server resides in a physically separate failure domain to either VPLEX cluster and uses different storage to the VPLEX cluster.

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Using VPLEX Witness ensures that true Federated Availability can be delivered. This means that regardless of site or link/WAN failure a copy of the data will automatically remain online in at least one of the locations. When setting up a single or a group of distributed volumes the user will choose a “preference rule” which is a special property that each individual or group of distributed volumes has. It is the preference rule that determines the outcome after failure conditions such as site failure or link partition. The preference rule can either be set to cluster A preferred, cluster B preferred or no automatic winner. At a high level this has the following effect to a single or group of distributed volumes under different failure conditions as listed below:

Figure 11: Failure scenarios without VPLEX Witness

As we can see in Figure 11 if we only used the preference rules without VPLEX Witness then under some scenarios manual intervention would be required to bring the volume online at a given VPLEX cluster(e.g. if site A is the preferred site, and site A fails, site B would also suspend).

This is where VPLEX Witness assists since it can better diagnose failures due to the network triangulation, and ensures that at any time at least one of the VPLEX clusters has an active path to the data as shown in the table below:

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As one can see from Figure 12 VPLEX Witness converts a VPLEX Metro from an active/active mobility and collaboration solution into an active/active continuously available storage cluster. Furthermore once VPLEX Witness is deployed, failure scenarios become

self-managing (i.e. fully automatic) which makes it extremely simple since there is nothing to do regardless of the failure condition.

Figure 13: VSPEX deployed with VPLEX Metro configured with 3rd_Site

VPLEX Witness

As depicted in Figure 13 above, we can see that the Witness VM is deployed in a separate fault domain and connected into both VPLEX management stations via an IP network.

Note: VPLEX Witness will support a maximum round trip latency of 1 second between VPLEX’s.

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VPLEX Virtualized Storage for VMware ESXi

Using VPLEX to virtualize your VMware ESXi storage will allow disk access without changing the fundamental dynamics of datastore creation and use. Whether using VPLEX Local for Virtual volumes or VPLEX Metro with Distributed Devices via AccessAnywhere™ the hosts are still going to coordinate locking to ensure volume consistency. This is controlled by the cluster file system Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) within each datastore. Each storage volume will be presented to VPLEX, a Virtual Volume or Distributed device is created and presented to each ESXi Host in the cluster and formatted with the VMFS file system. The Figure 14 below shows a high-level physical topology of how VMFS and RDM disks are passed to each ESXi host.

Figure 14: VMware virtual disk types

VMFS

VMware VMFS is a high-performance cluster file system for ESXi Server virtual machines that allows multiple ESXi Servers to access the same virtual machine storage concurrently. VPLEX enhances this technology by adding the ability to take a “virtual volume” at one location and create a RAID-1 mirror that creates a “distributed volume” to provide single disk semantics across two locations. This enables the VMFS datastore to be transparently utilized within and across datacenters.

Raw Device Mapping (RDM)

VMware also provides RDM, which is a SCSI pass-through technology that allows a virtual machine to pass SCSI commands for a volume directly to the physical storage array. RDM’s

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are typically used for quorum devices and/or other commonly shared volumes within a cluster.

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6. Best Practices and Configuration

Recommendations

6.1 VPLEX Back-End Storage

The following are Best Practices for VPLEX Back-End Storage:

• Dual fabric designs for fabric redundancy and HA should be implemented to avoid a single point of failure. This provides data access even in the event of a full fabric outage.

• Each VPLEX director will physically connect to both fabrics for both host (front-end) and storage (back-end) connectivity. Hosts will connect to both an A director and B director from both fabrics for the supported HA level of connectivity as required with the Non-Disruptive Upgrade (NDU) pre-checks.

• Fabric zoning should consist of a set of zones a single initiator and up to 16 targets • Avoid port speed issues between the fabric and VPLEX by using dedicated port

speeds taking special care not to use oversubscribed ports on SAN switches • It is required that each director in a VPLEX cluster must have a minimum of two I/O

paths to every local back-end storage array and to every storage volume presented to that cluster.

• VPLEX allows a maximum of 4 active paths per director to a given LUN (Optimal). This is considered optimal because each director will load balance across the four active paths to the storage volume.

6.2 VPLEX Host Connectivity

The following are Best Practices for VPLEX Host Connectivity:

• Dual fabric designs are considered a best practice

• The front-end I/O modules on each director should have a minimum of two physical connections one to each fabric (required).

• Each host should have at least one path to an A director and one path to a B director on each fabric for a total of four logical paths (required for NDU).

• Maximum availability for host connectivity is achieved by using hosts with multiple host bus adapters and with zoning to all VPLEX directors.

• Multipathing or path failover software is required at the host for access across the dual fabrics

• Each host should have fabric zoning that provides redundant access to each LUN from a minimum of an A and B director from each fabric.

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• Four paths are required for NDU

• Observe Director CPU utilization to schedule NDU for times when average consumption is at acceptable levels

6.3 VPLEX Network Connectivity

The following are Best Practices for VPLEX Network Connectivity:

• Requires an IPv4 Address for the management server

• Management Server is configured for Auto Negotiate (1Gbps NIC)

• VPN connectivity between management servers requires a routable/pingable connection between each cluster.

• Network QoS requires that the link latency does not exceed 1 second (not millisecond) for management server to VPLEX Witness server

• Network QoS must be able to handle file transfers during the NDU procedure • The following Firewall ports must be opened:

o Internet Key Exchange (IKE): UDP port 500

o NAT Traversal in the IKE (IPsec NAT-T): UDP port 4500

o Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP): IP protocol number 50 o Authentication Header (AH): IP protocol number 51

o Secure Shell (SSH) and Secure Copy (SCP): TCP port 22

6.4 VPLEX Cluster Connectivity

The following are Best Practices for VPLEX Cluster Connectivity:

Metro over Fiber Channel (8 Gbps)

• Each director‘s FC WAN ports must be able to see at least one FC WAN port on every other remote director (required).

• The director‘s local com port is used for communications between directors within the cluster.

• Independent FC WAN links are strongly recommended for redundancy

• Each director has two FC WAN ports that should be configured on separate fabrics to maximize redundancy and fault tolerance.

• Use VSAN’s to isolate VPLEX Metro FC traffic from other traffic using zoning. • Use VLAN’s to isolate VPLEX Metro Ethernet traffic from other traffic.

Metro over IP (10 Gbps/E)

• Latency must be less than or equal to 5ms (RTT)

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6.5 Storage Configuration Guidelines

This section provides guidelines for setting up the storage layer of the solution to provide high-availability and the expected level of performance.

The tested solutions described below use block storage via Fiber Channel. The storage layout described below adheres to all current best practices. A customer or architect with the necessary training and background can make modifications based on their understanding of the system usage and load if required. However, the building blocks described in this document ensure acceptable performance. The VSPEX storage building blocks document specifies recommendations for customization.

Table 2: Hardware Resources for Storage

Component Configuration

EMC VNX Array Block Common:

• 1 x 1 GbE NIC per Control Station for management • 1 x 1 GbE NIC per SP for management

• 2 front-end ports per SP • System disks for VNX OE For 125 virtual machines:

• EMC VNX5300

o 60 x 600 GB 15k rpm 3.5-inch SAS drives o 2 x 600 GB 15k rpm 3.5-inch SAS Hot Spares o 10 x 200 GB Flash drives

o 1 x 200 GB Flash drive as a hot spare o 4 x 200 GB Flash drive for FAST Cache

EMC VPLEX Metro Single Engine

Cluster-1: (2) Directors (8) Front-End Ports (8) Back-End Ports (4) WAN Comm Ports

EMC VPLEX Metro Single Engine

Cluster-2: (2) Directors (8) Front-End Ports (8) Back-End Ports (4) WAN Comm Ports

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6.6 VSPEX Storage Building Blocks

Please use the EMC VSPEX Private Cloud VMware vSphere 5.1 for up to 500 Virtual Machines to properly size, plan, and implement your 125 Virtual Machine deployment. Once the Building Block size has been established and the LUNs have been created on the back-end storage, they will be virtualized by VPLEX and presented to the ESXi hosts for use.

Figure 15: Storage Layout for 125 Virtual Machine Private Cloud Proven Infrastructure

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7. VPLEX Local Deployment

7.1 Overview

The VPLEX deployment process consists of two main steps, physical installation and configuration. The physical installation of VPLEX is racking and cabling VPLEX into the VSPEX rack. The installation process is well defined in the EMC VPLEX Procedure Generator and therefore is not replicated in this section. For detailed installation instructions use the EMC VPLEX Field Deployment Guide found in the EMC VPLEX Procedure Generator.

The VPLEX deployment process consists of several tasks that are listed below. There are tables within this chapter that detail what information is needed to complete the

configuration. These tables have been populated with sample data so it is clear what format is expected. Please see Appendix-D – VPLEX Pre-Configuration Worksheets for blank

worksheets that can be printed and filled in. Having these worksheets filled out prior to beginning the configuration process is highly recommended.

Once the VPLEX has been configured for use, you may then log in to a VPLEX management server to discover and claim your VSPEX Building Block LUNs from the VNX array. These LUNs will be used to create virtual volumes for VPLEX Local and/or Distributed Volumes for VPLEX Metro implementations.

For this document we will make the assumption that the VSPEX environment has been setup and is configured for a VSPEX Private Cloud that will support up to 125 virtual machines. Physical Installation and configuration of VPLEX is identical whether the VSPEX with VPLEX solution is already in production or newly installed.

The VPLEX pre-deployment gathering of data consists of the items listed below. The first phase is to collect all appropriate site data and fill out the configuration worksheets. These worksheets may be found in the Installation and Configuration section of the VPLEX

Procedure Generator. Throughout this chapter you will need to refer to the VPLEX

Configuration Guide, or other referenced document, for more detailed information on each step. Chapter 2 of the VPLEX Configuration Guide is for a VPLEX Local implementation, which is the focus for this chapter. For a VPLEX Metro deployment, review the tables in this chapter then proceed to Chapter 8. VPLEX Metro Deployment.

7.2 Physical Installation

This is the physical installation of the VPLEX into the VSPEX cabinet. This includes the following tasks:

 Unpack the VPLEX equipment.

 Install and cable the standby power supply (SPS) and engine.  Install the VPELX management server.

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 Connect the remaining internal VPLEX management cables.  Power up and verify VPLEX operational status.

 Connect the VPLEX front-end and back-end I/O cables.

7.3 Preliminary Tasks

After the VPLEX has been physically installed into the rack, you will need to verify that your environment is ready for the deployment of the VPLEX. These tasks include the following:

 Install the VPLEX Procedure Generator

 Review the VPLEX Implementation and Planning Best Practice Guide  Review the VPLEX Simple Support Matrix

 Review the VPLEX with GeoSynchrony 5.1 Release Notes  Review the VPLEX Configuration Guide

 Review the ESX Host Connectivity Guide  Review the Encapsulate Arrays on ESX Guide

 Verify (4) metadata devices are available for VPLEX install

 Review the EMC Secure Remote Support Gateway Install Procedure Before moving forward with the configuration of VPLEX, complete all the relevant

worksheets below to ensure all the necessary information to complete the configuration is available. A blank worksheet is provided in Appendix-D – VPLEX Pre-Configuration

Worksheets. Review Chapter 2, Task 1 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide. The following tables show sample configuration information as an example and should be replaced by actual values from the installation environment.

Table 3: IPv4 Networking Information

Information Additional description Value

Management server IP address

Public IP address for the management server on the customer IP network.

192.168.44.171

Network mask Subnet mask for the management server IP

network.

255.255.255.0

Hostname Hostname for the management server. Once

configured, this name replaces the default name (service) in the shell prompt each time you open an SSH session to the management server.

DC1-VPLEX

EMC secure remote support (ESRS) gateway

IP address for the ESRS gateway on the IP network.

192.168.44.254

Table 4: Metadata Backup Information

Day and time to back up the meta-volume

The day and time that the cluster’s meta-volume will be backed up to a remote storage volume on a back-end array (which will be selected during the cluster setup procedure) .

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Table 5: SMTP details to configure event notifications

Do you want VPLEX to send event notifications?

Sending event notifications allows EMC to act on any issues quickly.

Yes

Note: The remaining information in this table applies only if you specified yes to the previous question.

SMTP IP address of primary connection

SMTP address thru which Call Home emails will be sent. EMC recommends using your ESRS gateway as the primary connection address.

192.168.44.254

First/only recipient’s email address

Email address of a person (generally a customer’s employee) who will receive Call Home notifications.

[email protected]

SMTP IP address for first/only recipient

SMTP address through which the first/only recipient’s email notifications will be sent.

192.168.44.25

Event notification type One or more people can receive email notifications when events occur. Notification types:

1. On Success or Failure - Sends an email regardless of whether the email notification to EMC succeeded.

2. On Failure - Sends an email each time an attempt to notify EMC has failed.

3. On All Failure - Sends an email only if all attempts to notify EMC have failed.

On Success - Sends an email each time EMC is successfully sent an email notification.EMC recommends distributing connections over multiple SMTP servers for better availability. These SMTP v4 IP addresses can be different from the addresses used for event notifications sent to EMC.

1

Second recipient’s email address (optional)

Email address of a second person who will receive Call Home notifications.

[email protected]

SMTP IP address for second recipient *

SMTP address through which the second recipient’s email notifications will be sent.

192.168.44.25

Event notification type for second recipient

See description of event notification type for first recipient.

1

Third recipient’s email address (optional)

Email address of a third person who will receive Call Home notifications.

[email protected]

SMTP IP address for third recipient *

SMTP address through which the third recipient’s email notifications will be sent.

192.168.44.25

Event notification type for third recipient

See description of event notification type for first recipient.

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Do you want VPLEX to send system reports?

Day or week and time to send system reports. Sending weekly system reports allows EMC to communicate known configuration risks, as well as newly discovered information that can optimize or reduce risks.

Note that the connections for system reports are the same connections used for event

notifications.

default

Table 6: SNMP information

Do you want to use SNMP to collect

performance statistics? *

xxx

You can collect statistics such as I/O operations and latencies, as well as director memory, by issuing SNMP GET, GET-NEXT, or GET-BULK requests.

No

Community string (if you specified yes above). private

Table 7: Certificate Authority (CA) and Host Certificate information

CA certificate lifetime How many years the cluster's self-signed CA certificate should remain valid before expiring.

5

CA certificate key passphrase

VPLEX uses self-signed certificates for ensuring secure communication between VPLEX Metro clusters. This passphrase is used during

installation to create the CA certificate necessary for this secure communication.

dc1-vplex

Host certificate lifetime How many years the cluster's host certificate should remain valid before expiring.

2

Host certificate key passphrase

This passphrase is used to create the host certificates necessary for secure communication between clusters.

dc1-vplex

Table 8: Product Registration Information

Company site ID number (optional)

EMC-assigned identifier used when the VPLEX cluster is deployed on the ESRS server. The EMC customer engineer or account executive can provide this ID.

12345678

Company name CompanyName

Company contact First and last name of a person to contact. First Last

Contact’s business email address

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Contact’s business phone number

xxx-xxx-xxxx

Contact’s business address

Street, city, state/province, ZIP/postal code, country.

123 Main Street, City, State, 12345-6789

Method used to send event notifications

Method by which the cluster will send event messages to EMC.

_X_ 1. ESRS _X_ 2. Email

Remote support method Method by which the EMC Support Center can access the cluster.

_X_ 1. ESRS _X_ 2. WebEx

Table 9: VPLEX Metro IP WAN Configuration Information

Local director

discovery configuration details (default values work in most

installations)

Class-D network discovery address 224.100.100.100

Discovery port 10000

Listening port for communications between clusters

(Traffic on this port must be allowed through the network)

11000

Attributes for Cluster 1 Port Group 0

Class-C subnet prefix for Port Group 0. The IP subnet must be different than the one used by the management servers and different from the Port Group 1 subnet in Cluster 1.

192.168.11.0

Subnet mask 255.255.255.0

Cluster address (use Port Group 0 subnet prefix)

192.168.11.251

Gateway for routing configurations (use Port Group 0 subnet prefix)

192.168.11.1

MTU:

The size must be set to the same value for Port Group 0 on both clusters.

Also, the same MTU must be set for Port Group 1 on both clusters

Note: jumbo frames are supported.

1500

Port 0 IP address for director 1-1-A 192.168.11.35

Port 0 IP address for director 1-1-B 192.168.11.36

Attributes for Cluster 1 Port Group 1

Class-C subnet prefix for Port Group 1. The IP subnet must be different than the one used by the management servers and different from the Port Group 1 subnet in Cluster 2.

10.6.11.0

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Cluster address (use Port Group 1 subnet prefix)

10.6.11.251

Gateway for routing configurations (use Port Group 1 subnet prefix)

10.6.11.1

MTU:

The size must be set to the same value for Port Group 1 on both clusters.

Also, the same MTU must be set for Port Group 0 on both clusters

Note: jumbo frames are supported.

1500

Port 1 IP address for director 1-1-A 10.6.11.35

Port 1 IP address for director 1-1-B 10.6.11.36

VPLEX Metro supports the VPLEX Witness feature, which is implemented through the Cluster Witness function.

If the inter-cluster network is deployed over Fibre Channel, use separate, unique physical links from other management traffic links.

Table 10: Cluster Witness Configuration Information

Account and password for to log into ESX server where Cluster Witness Server VM is deployed

This password allows you to log into the Cluster Witness Server VM.

username password

Host certificate passphrase for the Cluster Witness certificate

dc1-vplex

Cluster Witness requires management IP network to be separate from inter-cluster network

Class-C subnet mask for the ESX server where Cluster Witness Server guest VM is deployed

255.255.255.0

IP Address for ESX server where Cluster Witness Server guest VM is deployed

192.168.34.100

Cluster Witness Server Guest VM Class-C subnet mask

255.255.255.0

Cluster Witness Server Guest VM IP Address 192.168.34.200

Public IP address for management server in Cluster 1

192.168.44.171

Public IP address for management server in Cluster 2

192.168.44.172

Cluster Witness functionality requires these protocols to be enabled by the firewalls

Any firewall between the Cluster Witness Server and the management servers need to allow traffic per the following protocols and ports.

IKE UDP port 500

ESP IP protocol number 50 IP protocol number 51

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configured on the

management network NAT Traversal in the IKE _{(IPsec NAT-T) UDP port 4500}

7.4 Set public IPv4 address

Before you can log in to a VPLEX management server over the public network, it is necessary to connect to the management server and set the public IP address. Review Chapter 2, Task 2 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

7.5 Run EZ-Setup Wizard

The EZ-Setup Wizard performs several tasks to set up your VPLEX implementation; these steps include but are not limited to the following:

• Configures event notifications

• Sets up SNMP for gathering performance statistics (optional)

• Configures VPLEX for authentication directory service (LDAP/AD) (optional) • Configures VPLEX for a customized login banner (optional)

Before starting the EZ-Setup wizard we need to ensure that the VPLEX product versions shipped from the factory match the appropriate GA code, specifically GeoSynchrony v5.1. Review Chapter 2, Task 3 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

Before launching the EZ-Setup utility on a cluster that contains the VS2 version of VPLEX hardware, you should verify that all components in the cluster are functioning correctly. Review Chapter 2, Task 4 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

Now the EZ-Setup utility can be launched. Review Chapter 2, Task 5 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

7.6 Expose Back-End Storage

At this point of the VPLEX installation please check SAN switches to verify that the VPLEX back-end ports have logged onto the fabric switch. Once verified, you will create the necessary zones between the VNX storage array and the VPLEX back-end ports. This process is documented in the VPLEX Implementation and Planning Best Practice Guide. Review Chapter 2, Task 6 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

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This part of the EZ-Setup will discover the back-end arrays and look for any LUN’s that have been pre-exposed to the VPELX via the VPLEX Storage Group on the VNX storage array. Note: You should expect to see the (4) metadata LUN’s at this point. Review Chapter 2, Task 7 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

At this point of the installation you will need to restart the web server services to

incorporate any security and/or certificate changes. Review Chapter 2, Task 8 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

7.8 Meta-volume

Meta-volumes are created during system setup and must be the first storage presented to VPLEX. The purpose of the metadata volume is to track all virtual-to-physical mappings, data about devices, virtual volumes, and system configuration settings. Review Chapter 2, Task 9 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

The meta-volume backup creates a point-in-time copy of the current in-memory metadata without activating it. The metadata backup is required for an overall system health check to pass prior to a major migration or update and may also be used if the VPLEX loses access to one or both primary meta-volume copies. Review Chapter 2, Task 10 of the VPLEX

GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

7.9 Register VPLEX

As part of the installation process you must register your VPLEX with EMC in order to ensure that may provide the best quality support for your product. Review Chapter 2, Task 11 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

7.10 Enable Front-End Ports

At this point of the VPLEX installation you will be enabling the front-end ports so that the ESX connected hosts may be zoned to the VPLEX for use. Please follow the best practices as outlined in the “VPLEX Implementation and Planning Best Practice Guide.” Review Chapter 2, Task 12 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

7.11 Configure VPLEX for ESRS Gateway

As part of the VPLEX installation, it is important that ESRS be deployed so that EMC can provide proactive support and advise when needed. This procedure is documented in the “EMC Secure Remote Support Gateway Install Procedure.” Review Chapter 2, Task 13 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

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7.12 Re-Verify Cluster Health

This post-install health check is to re-verify the following:  That all product versions are consistent

 Operational health and status of the VPLEX are OK  Current state of the metadata volumes are OK  That there are no unhealthy storage volumes

 Each storage volume is visible from all directors with at least (2) paths Review Chapter 2, Task 14 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

At this point the configuration of the VPLEX Local is now complete and the next step is to provision VPLEX virtual volumes.

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8. VPLEX Metro Deployment

8.1 Overview

The VPLEX deployment process consists of two main steps, physical installation and configuration. The physical installation of VPLEX is racking and cabling VPLEX into the VSPEX rack. The installation process is well defined in the EMC VPLEX Procedure Generator and therefore is not replicated in this section. For detailed installation instructions use the EMC VPLEX Field Deployment Guide found in the EMC VPLEX Procedure Generator.

The VPLEX configuration process consists of several tasks that are listed below. There are tables within this chapter that detail what information is needed to complete the

configuration. These tables have been populated with sample data so it is clear what format is expected. Please see Appendix-D – VPLEX Pre-Configuration Worksheets for blank

worksheets that can be printed and filled in. Having these worksheets filled out prior to beginning the configuration process is highly recommended.

Once the VPLEX has been configured for use, you may then log in to a VPLEX management server to discover and claim your VSPEX Building Block LUNs from the VNX array. These LUNs will be used to create virtual volumes for VPLEX Local and/or Distributed Volumes for VPLEX Metro implementations.

For this document the assumption is made that two VSPEX environments have been setup and are configured for a VSPEX Private Cloud that will support up to 125 virtual machines. Physical Installation and configuration of VPLEX is identical whether the VSPEX with VPLEX solution is already in production or newly installed.

The VPLEX pre-deployment gathering of data consists of the items listed below. The first phase is to collect all appropriate site data and fill out the configuration worksheets. These worksheets may be found in the Installation and Configuration section of the VPLEX

Procedure Generator. Throughout this chapter you will need to refer to the VPLEX

Configuration Guide, or other referenced document, for more detailed information on each step. Chapter 3 of the VPLEX Configuration Guide is for a VPLEX Metro implementation, which is the focus for this chapter.

8.2 Physical Installation

This is the physical installation of the VPLEX into the VSPEX cabinet. This includes the following tasks:

 Unpack the VPLEX equipment.

 Install and cable the standby power supply (SPS) and engine.  Install the VPLEX management server.

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 Connecting the WAN COM cables.

 Power up and verify VPLEX operational status.

 Connect the VPLEX front-end and back-end I/O cables. Ensure that VPLEX is properly installed at each site before continuing.

8.3 Preliminary Tasks

After the VPLEX has been physically installed into the rack, you will need to verify that your environment is ready for the deployment of the VPLEX. These tasks include the following:

 Install the VPLEX Procedure Generator

 Review the Implementation and Planning Best Practice Guide  Review the VPLEX Simple Support Matrix

 Review the VPLEX with GeoSynchrony 5.1 Release Notes  Review the VPLEX Configuration Guide

 Review the ESX Host Connectivity Guide  Review the Encapsulate Arrays on ESX Guide

 Verify (4) metadata devices are available for VPLEX install

 Review the EMC Secure Remote Support Gateway Install Procedure Before moving forward with the configuration of VPLEX Metro, complete all the worksheets from the previous section to ensure all the necessary information to complete the

configuration is available. A blank worksheet is provided in Appendix-D – VPLEX Pre-Configuration Worksheets. Review Chapter 3, Task 1 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

8.4 Set public IPv4 address

Before you can log in to a VPLEX management server over the public network, it is necessary to connect to the management server and set the public IP address. Review Chapter 3, Task 2 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

8.5 Run EZ-Setup Wizard on Cluster 1

The EZ-Setup Wizard performs several tasks to set up your VPLEX implementation; these steps include but are not limited to the following:

• Configures event notifications

• Sets up SNMP for gathering performance statistics (optional)

• Configures VPLEX for authentication directory service (LDAP/AD) (optional) • Configures VPLEX for a customized login banner (optional)

Before starting the EZ-Setup wizard we need to ensure that the VPLEX product versions shipped from the factory match the appropriate GA code, specifically GeoSynchrony v5.1. Review Chapter 3, Task 3 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

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Before launching the EZ-Setup utility on a cluster that contains the VS2 version of VPLEX hardware, you should verify that all components in the cluster are functioning correctly. Review Chapter 3, Task 4 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

Now the EZ-Setup utility can be launched for Cluster 1. Review Chapter 3, Task 5 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

8.6 Expose Back-End Storage

At this point of the VPLEX installation please check SAN switches to verify that the VPLEX back-end ports have logged onto the fabric switch. Once verified, you will create the necessary zones between the VNX storage array and the VPLEX back-end ports. This process is documented in the VPLEX Implementation and Planning Best Practice Guide. Review Chapter 3, Task 6 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

8.7 Resume EZ-Setup

At this point of the installation you will need to resume the EZ-Setup wizard. Review Chapter 3, Task 7 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

8.8 Meta-volume

Meta-volumes are created during system setup and must be the first storage presented to VPLEX. The purpose of the metadata volume is to track all virtual-to-physical mappings, data about devices, virtual volumes, and system configuration settings. Review Chapter 3, Task 8 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

The meta-volume backup creates a point-in-time copy of the current in-memory metadata without activating it. The metadata backup is required for an overall system health check to pass prior to a major migration or update and may also be used if the VPLEX loses access to one or both primary meta-volume copies. Review Chapter 3, Task 9 of the VPLEX

GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

8.9 Register Cluster 1

As part of the installation process you must register your VPLEX Cluster 1 with EMC in order to ensure that we can provide the best quality support for your product. Review Chapter 3, Task 10 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

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8.10 Enable Front-End Ports

At this point of the VPLEX installation you will be enabling the front-end ports so that the ESX connected hosts may be zoned to the VPLEX for use. Please follow the best practices as outlined in the VPLEX Implementation and Planning Best Practice Guide. Review Chapter 3, Task 11 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

8.11 Connect Cluster 2

Connect to Cluster-2’s management station and begin the installation process for the VPLEX Metro configuration. Note: Before you can log in to a VPLEX management server over the public network, it’s necessary to connect to the management server and set the public IP address. Review Chapter 3, Task 12 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

8.12 Verify the Product Version

During the install process it will be necessary to also check the VPLEX product versions shipped from the factory and load the appropriate GA code prior to running the initial EZ-Setup configuration wizard. Note: The Cluster-2 product versions should match what’s been loaded on Cluster-1. Review Chapter 3, Task 13 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1

Configuration Guide.

8.13 Verify Cluster 2 Health

Before launching the EZ-Setup utility on Cluster-2, you should verify that all components in the cluster are functioning correctly. Review Chapter 3, Task 14 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

8.14 Synchronize Clusters

This step is to synchronize the time between the management stations of Cluster-1 and Cluster-2 prior to running EZ-Config and joining the cluster’s together. Review Chapter 3, Task 15 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

8.15 Launch EZ-Setup on Cluster 2

Run the EZ-Setup Wizard on Cluster-2 to set up your VPLEX Metro implementation. Review Chapter 3, Task 16 of the VPLEX GeoSynchrony v5.1 Configuration Guide.

EMC VSPEX with EMC VPLEX for VMware vsphere 5.1

EMC

®

VSPEX

™

with EMC

®

VPLEX

™

for

Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

1. Executive Summary

2. Background and VPLEX Overview

2.1 Document purpose

2.2 Target Audience

2.3 Business Challenges

3. VSPEX with VPLEX Solution

3.1 VPLEX Local

3.2 VPLEX Metro

3.3 VPLEX Platform Availability and Scaling Summary

4. VPLEX Overview

4.1 Continuous Availability

4.2 Mobility

4.3 Stretched Clusters Across Distance

4.5 VPLEX Availability

4.6 Storage/Service Availability

5. Solution Architecture

5.1 Overview

5.2

Solution Architecture VPLEX Key Components

5.3 VPLEX Cluster Witness

6. Best Practices and Configuration

Recommendations

6.1 VPLEX Back-End Storage

6.2 VPLEX Host Connectivity

6.3 VPLEX Network Connectivity

6.4 VPLEX Cluster Connectivity

6.5 Storage Configuration Guidelines

6.6 VSPEX Storage Building Blocks

7. VPLEX Local Deployment

7.1 Overview

7.2 Physical Installation

7.3 Preliminary Tasks

7.4 Set public IPv4 address

7.5 Run EZ-Setup Wizard

7.6 Expose Back-End Storage

7.8 Meta-volume

7.9 Register VPLEX

7.10 Enable Front-End Ports

7.11 Configure VPLEX for ESRS Gateway

7.12 Re-Verify Cluster Health

8. VPLEX Metro Deployment

8.1 Overview

8.2 Physical Installation

8.3 Preliminary Tasks

8.4 Set public IPv4 address

8.5 Run EZ-Setup Wizard on Cluster 1

8.6 Expose Back-End Storage

8.7 Resume EZ-Setup

8.8 Meta-volume

8.9 Register Cluster 1

8.10 Enable Front-End Ports

8.11 Connect Cluster 2

8.12 Verify the Product Version

8.13 Verify Cluster 2 Health

8.14 Synchronize Clusters

8.15 Launch EZ-Setup on Cluster 2