HA multipathing adding new FC paths

[kulvinderboparai]

Hi

I have a v6080 controller which has 2x 4GB FC paths to a third party storage system.  Curently this has been configured for multipathing.

We are about to install a VMware environment and are looking to add an additional 2x4GB FC path to our storage.

If we want the NetApp controller only to use the second path for VMware traffic do we just create a new fabric zone and only make the new disks visble in this zone?

How do we configure this on the NetApp.

[shaunjurr]

Hi,

I guess it would be easier to give advice if you could explain what it is you are attempting to achieve with the segregation of paths to your SAN storage.  There might just be a different method to achieve the same results.

[kulvinderboparai]

Hi

We want to segregate the VMware host traffic so that it crosses the new 2x4GB FC paths to minimise the impact on services which use the other 2x4GB FC paths.

We will introduce new storage on the NetApp which will be lun masked to this new zone.

[shaunjurr]

Hi,

I guess there is a lot that I don't know about the setup, but is there any special reason why you think that segregating links FC links to your SAN storage will give you better performance than just allowing all traffic over all of the links?  If you want to prioritize I/O on a bit more planned basis, then you can take a look at the 'priority' command, aka "FlexShare" in marketing-speak.  That would give you a bit more fine-grained controll over what the NetApp prioritizes on the front side.

I'm not yet very well versed in vseries and I don't know if using 4 links will give you a general boost or not.  I guess that is something that one can look up easily enough.

Hope this helps.