Best Practices Dell EMC VPLEX: SAN Connectivity Implementation planning and best practices Abstract This document describes SAN connectivity for both host to Dell EMC™ VPLEX™ front-end and VPLEX to storage array back end. This document covers active/active and active/passive and ALUA array connectivity with illustrations detailing PowerStore™, Dell EMC Unity™ XT, and XtremIO™. Included also is information for metro node connectivity. January 2021 H13546 Revisions Revisions Date Description May 2020 Version 4: Updated ALUA connectivity requirements January 2021 Added metro node content Acknowledgments Author: VPLEX CSE Team [email protected] This document may contain certain words that are not consistent with Dell's current language guidelines. Dell plans to update the document over subsequent future releases to revise these words accordingly. 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[1/19/2021] [Best Practices] [H13546] 2 Dell EMC VPLEX: SAN Connectivity | H13546 Table of contents Table of contents Revisions............................................................................................................................................................................. 2 Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................................................................... 2 Table of contents ................................................................................................................................................................ 3 Executive summary ............................................................................................................................................................. 5 1 Frontend connectivity ................................................................................................................................................... 7 1.1 Frontend/host initiator port connectivity .............................................................................................................. 7 1.2 Host cross-cluster connect ............................................................................................................................... 11 1.3 VBLOCK and VPLEX front end connectivity rules ........................................................................................... 12 2 ESXi path loss handling ............................................................................................................................................. 14 2.1 Path loss handling semantics (PDL and APD) ................................................................................................. 14 2.1.1 Persistent device loss (PDL) ............................................................................................................................ 14 2.1.2 vSphere storage for vSphere 5.0 U1 ................................................................................................................ 15 2.1.3 vSphere storage for vSphere 5.5 ...................................................................................................................... 15 2.1.4 APD handling .................................................................................................................................................... 16 2.2 vSphere storage for vSphere 5.1 ...................................................................................................................... 17 2.2.1 Disable storage APD handling .......................................................................................................................... 17 2.2.2 Change timeout limits for storage APD ............................................................................................................ 17 2.2.3 PDL/APD references ........................................................................................................................................ 18 3 VPLEX backend array connectivity ............................................................................................................................ 19 3.1 Back-end/storage array connectivity ................................................................................................................ 19 3.1.1 Active/active arrays .......................................................................................................................................... 19 3.1.2 Active/passive and ALUA arrays ...................................................................................................................... 23 3.1.3 Additional array considerations ........................................................................................................................ 29 4 XtremIO connectivity .................................................................................................................................................. 30 4.1 XtremIO overview ............................................................................................................................................. 30 4.2 VPLEX connectivity to XtremIO ........................................................................................................................ 30 4.2.1 Single engine/single X-Brick ............................................................................................................................. 31 4.2.2 Single engine/dual X-Brick ............................................................................................................................... 32 4.2.3 Single engine/quad X-Brick .............................................................................................................................. 33 4.2.4 Dual engine/single X-Brick ............................................................................................................................... 34 4.2.5 Dual engine/dual X-Brick .................................................................................................................................. 35 4.2.6 Dual engine/quad X-Brick ................................................................................................................................. 36 4.2.7 Quad engine/single X-Brick .............................................................................................................................. 37 4.2.8 Quad engine/dual X-Brick ................................................................................................................................. 38 3 Dell EMC VPLEX: SAN Connectivity | H13546 Table of contents 4.2.9 Quad engine/quad X-Brick ............................................................................................................................... 39 4.3 XtremIO 6 X-Brick connectivity ......................................................................................................................... 40 4.3.1 Solution 1 .......................................................................................................................................................... 40 4.3.2 Solution 2 .......................................................................................................................................................... 42 5 PowerStore and Dell EMC Unity XT .......................................................................................................................... 44 5.1 Metro node feature ........................................................................................................................................... 44 5.2 PowerStore ....................................................................................................................................................... 44 5.3 Dell EMC Unity XT ............................................................................................................................................ 45 5.4 Metro node connectivity .................................................................................................................................... 47 5.5 Backend connectivity ........................................................................................................................................ 47 5.6 Dell EMC Unity XT and single-appliance PowerStore connectivity .................................................................. 48 5.7 PowerStore dual-appliance connectivity .......................................................................................................... 50 5.8 Frontend/host initiator port connectivity ...........................................................................................................