Veritas InfoScale products support for VMware functionality


Veritas InfoScale products support for VMware functionality
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Veritas InfoScale components provide the following support for VMware functionality:

VMware snapshots

The following limitations apply for VMware snapshots:
- VMware snapshots are not supported when raw device mapping is used in physical mode, regardless of whether Veritas InfoScale components are installed or not. The REDO-log functionality that is required for VMware Snapshots is not available with raw device mapping used in the physical mode.
  
  Veritas InfoScale components support VMDK file utilization as a backend storage to overcome this limitation.
  
  Veritas InfoScale components also support raw device mapping in the logical mode and VMware snapshots, since RDM-logical mode uses the same level of SCSI virtualization as VMDK files.
  
  See When to use Raw Device Mapping and Storage Foundation.
- VMware snapshots are not supported when using VMDK files as backend storage and the multi-writer flag has been set. For example, when using SFCFSHA with VMDK files. This is a VMware limitation.
- VMware snapshots are not supported with any VM using disks managed by the VMwareDisks agent, due to a limitation with the agent.
vMotion (Live Migration)
- For Storage Foundation: vMotion is supported.
- For Storage Foundation High Availability (SFHA) and Cluster Server (VCS):
  
  VMware vMotion has a limitation that affects all clustering software. vMotion is not supported when a virtual SCSI controller is set to have sharing enabled. Virtual SCSI controller sharing is a virtual machine attribute and is required to be set for the virtual machines that share storage between each other (on the same physical ESXi server or between physical ESXi servers). Essentially all clustering products that rely on SAN storage require this attribute to be set.
  
  VCS provides the VMwareDisks agent to override this limitation and enable shared storage for SFHA to operate. SFHA supports VMDK files and therefore vMotion.
  
  See About setting up Storage Foundation Cluster File High System High Availability on VMware ESXi.
  
  This limitation does not affect the virtual machines that do not have the sharing attribute turned on for their virtual SCSI controllers.
- For Storage Foundation Cluster File System High Availability (SFCFSHA): vMotion is supported.
N-Port ID Virtualization (NPIV)

NPIV used with Storage Foundation is fully supported. No additional setup tasks are required for Storage Foundation when the storage is NPIV-enabled.

VMware currently does not support I/O fencing with NPIV for any other 3rd party clustering software other than MSCS. In VMware environments, Storage Foundation High Availability (SFHA) and SFCFSHA support I/O fencing using the Coordination Point server as an arbitration mechanism.