3–Configuration

Monitoring NPIV Virtual Ports from SANsurfer

VMware ESX/ESXi 4.0 enables NPIV support on QLogic 4Gb/8Gb Fibre Channel Adapters and QLE8000 Series Converged Network Adapters. No additional software or hardware installation is required to support NPIV. Note that VMware ESX/ESXi 4.0 supports NPIV only on RDM (Raw Device Mapping) devices.

To configure NPIV, the Fibre Channel-FCoE switch port must be configured to enable NPIV. The specific procedure to enable NPIV on the switch port depends on the switch itself. For details, refer to the Fibre Channel-FCoE switch documentation.

For more detailed NPIV information, refer to the following documents available from VMware:

„Fibre Channel SAN Configuration Guide http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_san_cfg.pdf

„VMware Configuring and Troubleshooting N-Port ID Virtualization technical note

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35_25_npiv_config.pdf (information is also applicable to ESX 4.0)

Monitoring NPIV Virtual Ports from SANsurfer

QLogic’s SANsurfer management tools also support the NPIV functionality in the drivers. SANsurfer FC HBA Manager (GUI) and SANsurfer FC HBA CLI (command line interface) both display the virtual ports configured on the system. SANsurfer management tools also provide additional information on the virtual ports, including diagnostics and monitoring information.

SANsurfer generates events and notifies the user of any change (such as virtual port creation and deletion) at the backend to the virtual ports.

Figure 3-4shows a typical virtual environment in SANsurfer FC HBA Manager with physical and virtual ports. The proc node provides information on the number of virtual ports and their individual states, as well as the target devices with which they can communicate (see also “Using Console OS” on page 3-2).

3-10

FC0054607-00 A

Page 34
Image 34
Q-Logic FC0054607-00 A manual Monitoring Npiv Virtual Ports from SANsurfer