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5–Installation in a VMware Environment
Deploying NPIV for VMware ESX/ESXi 4.0
5-28 FE0254601-00 A
Deploying NPIV for VMware ESX/ESXi 4.0
QLogic Fibre Channel and Converged Network Adapters support N_Port ID
virtualization (NPIV) for Fibre Channel and FCoE SANs. NPIV enables each
virtual machine to have its own Fibre Channel-FCoE WWPN by creating multiple
virtual adapters on a single physical adapter. VMware ESX/ESXi 4.0 enables
NPIV support on QLogic 4Gb and 8Gb Fibre Channel adapters and 8100 Series
Converged Network Adapters. No additional software or hardware installation is
required to support NPIV.
VMware ESX/ESXi 4.0 supports NPIV only on raw device mapping (RDM)
devices. To configure NPIV, you must enable NPIV on the Fibre Channel-FCoE
switch port. For information about enabling NPIV on the switch port, refer to the
Fibre Channel-FCoE switch documentation. For information about NPIV, refer to
the following documents:
Fibre Channel SAN Configuration Guide
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_san_cfg.pdf
Configuring and Troubleshooting N-Port ID Virtualization technical note (also
applies to ESX 4.0)
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35_25_npiv_config.pdf
Requirements for Using NPIV
The following are required to implement NPIV:
NPIV can only be used for virtual machines with RDM disks. Virtual
machines with regular virtual disks use the WWNs of the host’s physical
adapters.
The physical adapters on an ESX/ESXi host, using their own WWNs, must
have access to all LUNs that are to be accessed by virtual machines running
on that host.
Only four WWN pairs are generated per virtual machine.
The switches must support NPIV.
The NPIV LUN number and NPIV target ID must match the physical LUN
and Target ID when configuring an NPIV LUN for access at the storage
level.
Always use the vSphere client to manage virtual machines with WWNs.
The virtual machine must be powered off to configure it for NPIV.