Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform

G1000 ALUA support

Technical Proficiency Center
By Chris Hill
September 2015

Executive Summary
Hitachi Storage Virtualization Operating System (SVOS) enables third party storage to be virtualized behind a Hitachi
enterprise storage array. Enhancements to the operating system have added additional support for EMC VNX storage
arrays being virtualized behind a Hitachi Data System enterprise platform. ALUA (multi-mode) support has been added to
SVOS for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G1000 and Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform family midrange systems, allowing
the storage administrator to choose the path option appropriate for the logical devices being virtualized. When virtualizing
logical devices using ALUA (multi-mode), the paths are marked active (optimized) or passive (non-optimized) with I/O
distributed using round-robin or extended round-robin.

Intended Audience
This guide is intended for storage personnel responsible for installing, configuring and administering enterprise storage
arrays. The examples within this guide provide an overview of the steps necessary to successfully virtualize logical
devices from an EMC VNX 5100 behind Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform 1000.

Feedback
Hitachi Data Systems welcomes your feedback. Please share your thoughts by sending an email message to
TPC@hds.com. To assist the routing of this message, include the title of this whitepaper and the page number in question
in the email.

Lab Environment Caution

Testing of this configuration was in a lab environment. Many things affect production environments beyond prediction or
duplication in a lab environment. Follow the recommended practice of conducting proof-of-concept testing for acceptable
results in a non-production, isolated test environment that otherwise matches your production environment before your
production implementation of this solution.

Contents
Hardware and Software Used...............................................................................................................................1
Diagram of Environment .......................................................................................................................................2
Prerequisites .........................................................................................................................................................3
How to Virtualize Logical Devices from EMC VNX 5100 ...................................................................................... 5
Use Active/Passive (Single Mode) Settings ......................................................................................................5
Use ALUA (Multi-mode) Settings ....................................................................................................................11
Load Balancing Behaviors ..................................................................................................................................15
Active/Passive (Single Mode) .........................................................................................................................15
ALUA (Multi-mode) .........................................................................................................................................17

Hardware and Software Used

Items and Version
Storage Systems

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G1000 with microcode 80-02-41-00/00

EMC VNX5100 with microcode 05.32.000.5.216

Storage System Management

Hitachi Command Suite 8.1.4-00

Diagram of Environment

Prerequisites
This guide does not state the steps needed to prepare the servers, switch, and storage prior to the storage virtualization
tasks. We assume that the SAN infrastructure is already in place and appropriate volumes have been created using the
management tools for EMC storage systems.
Table 1 is a zoning example between the Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G1000 and EMC VNX 5100 storage systems.
Table 1 Zone configuration

UVM Path Option

VSP G1000

EMC VNX 5100

Active/Passive (Single Mode)

1C/4C

SPA0/SPB0

ALUA (Multi-mode)

3B/4B

SPA1/SPB1

Figure 1 shows the EMC VNX initiator configurable options:

Figure 1

Figure 2 shows the EMC VNX initiator legacy failover mode 2 configuration.

Figure 2

Figure 3 shows the EMC Active-Active (ALUA) failover mode 4 configuration settings.

Figure 3

How to Virtualize Logical Devices from EMC VNX 5100

This section shows how to virtualize logical devices from EMC VNX 5100 using active/passive (single mode) settings.

Use Active/Passive (Single Mode) Settings

To virtualize the LDEVs from EMC using active/passive (single mode) settings, do the following.
1. From the Hitachi Command Suite interface, click the Resources tab. Then, under Storage Systems, expand the
Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G1000 system (or similar enterprise subsystem) and click External Storage. See
Figure 4.

Figure 4

2. Click the System GUI link. It is located in the upper right corner of the Command Suite window. Figure 5.

Figure 5

This is the External Storage window after launching the graphical user interface. See Figure 6.

Figure 6

3. To start the virtualization wizard, click Add External Volumes. See Figure 7.
This starts the Add External Volumes wizard (Figure 8). There are options to add volumes by creating a new
external path group or to use an existing external path group.

Figure 7

Figure 8

4. Under the By New External Path Group option, click Create External Path Group. See Figure 8.
The Create External Path Group window displays the available external paths configured on the subsystem.
You can assign new ports by clicking Discover External Target Ports. See Figure 9.

Figure 9

5. Under Available External Ports, select the storage ports to be added in the path group and click Add. See
Figure 10. The selected storage ports move under Selected External Ports. After creating the path group, click
OK for Hitachi Command Suite to discover the external volumes.

Figure 10

The Add External Volumes page displays, showing the volumes available to be externalized. See Figure 11.

Figure 11

6. Under Discovered External Volumes, click Select All Pages. After selecting the volumes, click Next to confirm
and proceed to confirming details of virtualization. See Figure 12 and Figure 13.

Figure 12

Figure 13

7. To confirm the new settings, click Apply. See Figure 14.

10

Figure 14

Use ALUA (Multi-mode) Settings

This section does not include creating the path group. See Use Active/Passive (Single Mode) Settings on page 5 for
instructions to create the path group. These instructions begin after discovering the external volumes.
When configuring ALUA on the EMC initiator ports, additional configurable options are available. See Figure 15.

11

Figure 15

To configure ALUA, do the following.

1. On the External Volumes page (Figure 16), do the following:

The Initial Parity Group ID text boxes.

For LDEV Name, the Prefix text box and the Initial Number text box.

For the Use ALUA as Path Mode list, click Enable.

For the Load Balance Mode text box, click Normal Round-robin.
You can click Extended round robin mode, which is better suited for sequential workloads.

Click Add and then Next.

The confirmation screen displays. See Figure 17.

12

Figure 16

2. To finish the wizard on the Confirm page, click Apply. See Figure 17.

13

Figure 17

14

Load Balancing Behaviors

Section 2 shows how I/O load balancing behaves for external volumes during a failure scenario when using either
active/passive (single mode) or ALUA (multi-mode). To simulate the port failure, one of the ports in the path group will be
removed from the zoning configuration.
ALUA (multi-mode) support allows for equal I/O distribution across all ports used to present external logical devices
compared with active/passive (single mode) only using one active path at a time. Both strategies are able to deliver I/O to
the logical devices while providing fault tolerance to the external subsystem connected to Hitachi Data Systems enterprise
storage arrays.

Active/Passive (Single Mode)

The active/passive (single mode) path group and I/O behavior before and right after zone changes have been applied.
See Figure 18.

Figure 18

1. I/O traverses a single path or active-backup mode and, when port failure is detected, the alternate port resumes
all I/O. See Figure 19 on page 16.

15

Figure 19

2. After restoring the failed port, I/O resumes to the port with highest priority. See Figure 20.

Figure 20

16

ALUA (Multi-mode)
The ALUA (multi-mode) path group and I/O behavior before zone changes have been applied. See Figure 21.

Figure 21

1. Both ports load balance the I/O to the external volumes with equal distribution between ports. Figure 22 shows I/O
traffic before and during the initial failure.

Figure 22

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2. The remaining port handles all I/O to the external volumes during port failure. See Figure 23.

Figure 23

3. After restoring connectivity to the failed port I/O, the external volumes begin to rebalance. See Figure 24.

Figure 24

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4. Figure 25 and Figure 26 show the paths returning online and I/O load balancing resumes.

Figure 25

Figure 26

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September 2015