topic Re: Paths to storage unoptimized? in VMware Solutions Discussions

Paths to storage unoptimized?

mneumonik — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 07:04:07 GMT

Hey folks,

I'm a bit new to the NetApp world. I'm quite used to EMC products, and in the past with EMC, you'd have multiple paths to multiple controllers and you had redundancy that way.

We have a dual head 3170 here, and i zoned my vmware to all the ports on both heads.. The san is complaining that data is traversing through an unoptimized path. I'm sure i could simple remove the other head from the zone, but why would i want to do that for redundancy's sake?

Hope someone can help explain whats going wrong or if this was just set up wrong before i got here..

Re: Paths to storage unoptimized?

ekashpureff — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 22:15:30 GMT

The paths to the controler serving the target LUNs are the primary paths, the failover controller is the secondary 'non-optimized' paths.

You need access to both paths for cluster failover to work with single_image cfmode. Your multipathing on the client needs to recognize

this and use the primary paths while available...

I hope this response has been helpful to you.

At your service,

Eugene E. Kashpureff
ekashp@kashpureff.org
Fastlane NetApp Instructor and Independent Consultant
http://www.fastlaneus.com/ http://www.linkedin.com/in/eugenekashpureff

(P.S. I appreciate points for helpful or correct answers.)

Re: Paths to storage unoptimized?

kritchie — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 22:16:16 GMT

You'll want to download the Virtual Storage Console for vCenter. It will discover your paths, set your HBA timeouts correctly and help the MPIO stack choose the optimized path to the LUN.

You can download the Virtual Storage Console from the NOW site here:

https://now.netapp.com/NOW/cgi-bin/software/?product=Virtual+Storage+Console+for+VMware+vSphere&platform=Windows

Be sure to read the documentation. For a quick overview, check out Vaughn's blog posts:

http://blogs.netapp.com/virtualstorageguy/2009/10/now-available-the-virtual-storage-console-vsphere-plug-in.html

http://blogs.netapp.com/virtualstorageguy/2010/07/netapp-vsc-20-vcenter-plug-in-announced.html

Re: Paths to storage unoptimized?

ekashpureff — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 22:24:40 GMT

Check to see if ALUA (Asymetric Logical Unit Access) has been enabled for the igroup for the ESX hosts.

'igroup show -v'

To enable ALUA:

'igroup set esxigroupname alua yes'

I hope this response has been helpful to you.

At your service,

Eugene E. Kashpureff
ekashp@kashpureff.org
Fastlane NetApp Instructor and Independent Consultant
http://www.fastlaneus.com/ http://www.linkedin.com/in/eugenekashpureff

(P.S. I appreciate points for helpful or correct answers.)

Re: Paths to storage unoptimized?

mneumonik — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 22:33:25 GMT

Yea, seems ALUA was the issue.. I confirmed that with Netapp as well when they called for autosupport.

Sidenote, would enabling ALUA on the iGroups for other servers like windows servers running Data ONTAP DSM Manager showing unoptimized paths change to optimized?

Re: Paths to storage unoptimized?

ekashpureff — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 22:41:57 GMT

No, Do NOT enable ALUA if you're using the NetApp DSM.

You do use ALUA with the Microsoft DSM.

I hope this response has been helpful to you.

At your service,

Eugene E. Kashpureff
ekashp@kashpureff.org
Fastlane NetApp Instructor and Independent Consultant
http://www.fastlaneus.com/ http://www.linkedin.com/in/eugenekashpureff

(P.S. I appreciate points for helpful or correct answers.)

Re: Paths to storage unoptimized?

mneumonik — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 22:48:30 GMT

So how do i make the all paths optimized with netapp dsm?

Consider the scenario of me having a LUN on controller 1 and another on controller 2... the paths will need to be zoned and by default it tries to use all of them.