Linux VMWare SAN Transport without Multipath

[Jevon]

I have a RHEL Master/Media server with an IBM Storwise v7000 to backup an ESX Cluster.

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH127089

I understand from this doc that "linux multipath is not supported.... yet."

Is there any issue with having both paths to the data store presented to this linux server and simply blacklist ESX datastores in the multipath.conf?

NetBackup 7.6.0.2

ESX 5.5

[RiaanBadenhorst]

Hi,

That should be fine. The issue is that NBU should not see 2 paths, which means that the OS should not see 2 paths. If you black list, or even zone to 1 HBA port it should be fine. This does not have to influence the rest of the luns that are presented to the system which could be multipathed. This specifically relates to the operation of the VMware backup process.

[Marianne]

I am missing something here...

Why not just zone one path to the Linux server?

[Jevon]

The same storage provides disk for a file system for the master/media server.  A single HBA is being used.  Only zoning to a single node can result in the of freezing when maintenance is done on the v7000.  

I guess I just want to avoid having to shutdown the master/media server whenever we need to do anything in the v7000.

[RiaanBadenhorst · Accepted solution]

As I said previously, you can zone the luns of the vmfs datastores to only HBA, the rest of the luns with other data can be zoned to both paths. You don't zone a storage array to a host, you zone luns.

[Jevon]

This isn't what I see.

In storage, I assign the Linux Host (Single HBA) access to the ESX datastore.

On the Fabric (SAN switch), I zone both controllers of the storage to the HBA.  This yields two paths, incremental on the "bus" portion of the SCSI address.

Now, I could zone on the san switch one controller, so that only one path shows up.  Unfortunately, LUNs being controlled by the node I didn't assign the linux host to will not be reachable.

[RiaanBadenhorst]

If it can't be controlled from the SAN level then you should do it via the multi pathing software on the host ( as you suggested)