Dell EMC ViPR 3.6 – VMAX Export Path Adjustment

A very useful new feature in ViPR 3.6 is the ability to increase/decrease the number of fibre channel paths on an existing VPLEX or VMAX export (host/cluster). The following example showcases the ability to increase the path count for a VMAX backed ViPR Export Group.

Note: If you want to adjust the path for an export where there are pre-existing masking
views for a host or cluster in the export group, first ingest any volumes exported to
the host. Example ViPR Ingest Procedure.

As can be seen from the following screen captures the export group consists of 2x ESXi hosts with each host having 2x initiators and each host presently configured for 1x FC path per initiator, as part of this example we will double the total fc paths per host from 2 to 4.

Export Group named ‘EHC’ details:

Paths per initiator =1 :

Pre-Modification: View from vSphere client for one of the ESXi hosts, displaying a total 2x fc paths to the ViPR provisioned LUN (this exercise will increase this count to 4x paths per ESXi host):

1. Go to Service Catalog > Block Storage Services > Export Path Adjustment:

2. Select the project to which the export group belongs. Select the storage type of shared as this is a vSphere cluster example. Choose the export group where you want to adjust paths:

3. Enter the minimum and maximum number of paths allowed from the initiator to
the Storage Port on the storage array. ViPR Controller tries to provision the maximum number of paths possible without exceeding the setting in the Maximum Paths field. Enter the number of storage port paths that may be provisioned for each
initiator. This controls how many ports will be assigned to each initiator:

4. Enter Yes to use the existing export paths and/or add new paths.
When set to Yes, you can add paths. You cannot decrease “Maximum Paths” or
“Paths Per Initiator.” When adding new Storage Ports due to overutilization of
existing ports, set this to Yes so that more paths will be added to balance
utilization. Paths will not be removed with this option. Enter the storage system which needs a path adjustment and select the virtual array containing the export group to be adjusted.

5. Do not select any ports unless specific ones are to be used in the export.
If ports are selected, they will be added to the usable storage ports to
determine the final list of ports available for allocation. If an insufficient number
of ports are selected, the order may fail.

Note: ViPR Controller can’t initiate a host re-scan on hosts that were manually added
to ViPR Controller. To avoid loss of connectivity, turn on Suspend before
removing paths when the service is used for manually discovered hosts.

Use the Preview option before finalizing changes to paths:

6. Click on Order to proceed with the changes:

7. View progress of the Export Path Adjustment, you can now see that each initiator has 2x target VMAX ports:

8. View the changes made to the paths by looking at Export Group > Volume:

Post-Modification: View from vSphere client for one of the ESXi hosts, NOW displaying a total 4x fc paths to the ViPR provisioned LUN (the exercise has successfully increased the count to 4x paths per ESXi host):