This week IBM has completed the VMware vSphere Metro Storage Cluster certification for IBM SAN Volume Controller. IBM SVC has rich history of being deployed across data centers. It has been a topic which I’ve talked about on numerous occasions.
This post discusses how SVC can provide a two site vMSC HA/Mobility solution along with replication to a third site with SRM DR failover.
This post is part 1, of a 3 part series where I explain in-depth the SVC solution.
VMware introduced a new HCL category starting with vSphere 5.0 called vSphere Metro Storage Cluster. It provides official support for storage solutions which qualify and meet the certification.
This is the link to the VMware HCL SVC entry, within it vMSC is now listed.
Along with the HCL entry is a new VMware KB which provides some more details.
Feel free to comment with any questions!
Hi, do you know if the “RoundRobin” PSP is also supported in a Stretched SVC Cluster on vSphere 5.0 U1? In the VMware compatibility list I can only find the default “fixed” path selection policy but within the IBM redbook “Implementing the IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller V6.3″ it says Round Robin is also supported (but not explicitly mentioning Split I/O group).
Hi,
For a split or stretched SVC cluster you will want to utilize FIXED path policy. Round-robin is supported, but since we use the generic round robin (which is not ALUA aware) the hosts will utilize all paths in the SVC cluster, local and remote. My recommendation is to manually set your preferred fixed paths to the local SVC node.