In this article by Victor Wu, the author of the book Cisco UCS Cookbook , we will learn the concept of how to set up the EMC CLARiiON Storage connectivity of Cisco UCS B-Series server.

(For more resources related to this topic, see here.)

Getting ready

We assume that each Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnect is connected to one core SAN Switch (Brocade DS-300B). Each SAN Switch is connected to an EMC Storage by two FC uplinks. This storage has two controllers and each one has two FC ports (A0 & A1 and B0 & B1). The VMware vSphere software is installed (local drive) in a Cisco B200 M3 Blade Server that is located in UCS 5108 Chassis. The B200 M3 Blade Server has two vHBAs (Virtual Host Bus Adapters) predefined in the UCS Service Profile. VMware vSphere host can boot up successfully from this service profile. The detail of this demo environment is listed in the following figure:

How to do it…

Let’s see how to create a new Storage Group in EMC Unisphere Manager and assign Cisco UCS’s vHBA to this Storage Group. Then you can assign EMC’s SAN disk into this Storage Group.

1. First, you need to note the WWPN of each vHBA on the Storage tab of this service profile as shown in the following screenshot. The WWPN of vHBA-FIA is 20:00:00:25:B5:0A:00:02 and vHBA-FIB is 20:00:00:25:B5:0B:00:02:
2. Login into EMC Unisphere Manager and go to Port Management, you will note that the WWN of each port on each controller; the A-4 and A-5 are on Controller1 and B-4 & B-5 are on Controller2. The WWN of Controller1 A4 is 50:06:01:64:47:20:25:EB and Controller1 A5 is 50:06:01:65:47:20:25:EB. The WWN of Controller2 B4 is 50:06:01:6C:47:20:25:EB and Controller2 B5 is 50:06:01:6D:47:20:25:EB, as shown in the following screenshot:
   

   The EMC Unisphere Manager is the web-based tool to manage and monitor EMC CLARiiON/VNX SAN Storage.

3. Login into SAN Switch-A by ssh command and verify that the WWPN of each Controller’s FC port and WWN of each vHBA can successfully log on to the SAN switch. According to the following screen, you can see port 0 & 3 in WWPN of Controller1 SPA-4 and Controller2 ; by executing the switchshow command; Port 6 & 7 are the FI-A FC uplinks:
   Due to port 6 & 7 in N_Port ID virtualization (NPIV), you need to perform the portloginshow <port number> command to verify if the WWN of vHBA can successfully log on to the SAN switch, you can see that the WWN of vHBA-FIA can login into port 6, as shown in the following screenshot:

   

   Finally, you can see all the WWN that can log on to SAN Switch-A successfully, the details are shown in the following table:

   SAN Switch	Port Number	WWPN/WWN	Devices
   SAN Switch-A	0	50:06:01:64:47:20:25:EB	Controller1-A4
   	3	50:06:01:6D:47:20:25:EB	Controller2-B5
   	6	20:00:00:25:B5:0A:00:02	vHBA-FIA

4. Repeat the procedure in step three to verify all the WWPN/WWN on SAN Switch-B, you can see that all WWNs can log in to SAN Switch-B successfully, as shown in the following screenshot:
   
   The following table is the listed summary of all the WWPN/WWN on SAN Switch-B:

   SAN Switch	Port Number	WWPN / WWN	Devices
   SAN Switch-B	0	50:06:01:6c:47:20:25:eb	Controller2-B4
   	3	50:06:01:65:47:20:25:eb	Controller1-A5
   	6	20:00:00:25:B5:0B:00:02	vHBA-FIB

5. Finally, create two zones on each SAN Switch, the following table lists the summary of each FC zone:
   

   SAN Switch	Zone Name	Zone Member1	Zone Member2
   SAN Switch-B	vHBA-FIA_Controll1-A4	vHBA-FIA	Controller1-A4
   	vHBA-FIA_Controll2-B5	vHBA-FIA	Controller2-B5
   SAN Switch-B	vHBA-FIB_Controll1-A5	vHBA-FIB	Controller1-A5
   	vHBA-FIB_Controll2-B4	vHBA-FIB	Controller2-B4

   According to the best practice of FC zoning, single initiator zoning is recommended (one initiator to one target).

How it works…

EMC Storage connectivity of Cisco UCS can be done through following steps:

1. When the FC zoning is created on both the SAN Switches, then login into the EMC Unisphere Manager, right click on the System and choose Connectivity Status as shown in the following screenshot:
   
   Then you will see that all the UCS’s initiators (WWN of each vHBA) will be registered automatically in one host esxi55b:
   

   The host initiator can register automatically in one group, if the ESX is version 5.0 or above.

2. Go to Storage and create a new Storage Group on the Storage menu, enter the name of the Storage Group.
3. After creating the Storage Group, select the Hosts tab and move the esxi55b host initiator group to the right-hand side and press the Apply button. Finally, the EMC Storage connectivity of Cisco UCS is completed:
   

There’s more…

By default, VMware vSphere is using VMware Native Multipathing Plugin (NMP) for multi-path management. The NMP is also supported into EMC CLARiiON storage’s multipathing. The EMC also provides its own multipath software for VMware vSphere, it is an EMC Powerpath/VE that is used to automate and optimize data path pools in virtual environments.

Summary

In this article, you will learn how to set up the Cisco UCS connectivity of different band storage that is EMC CLARiiON and HP 3PAR storage.

Resources for Article:

Further resources on this subject:

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager 8: Call Routing, Dial Plan, and E.164[article]
• Creating and Using Templates with Cacti 0.8[article]
• Using Asterisk as a PSTN Gateway for OpenSER[article]