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Monday, January 31, 2011

EMC VAII



EMC Array Integration

There are a number of free, yes free, tools available from EMC to assist with managing ESX host's shared storage. All of the tools are available on powerlink.emc.com. These vSphere plugins allow you to create and configure LUNs from end-to-end on an EMC array. The Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI) tools come in the following flavors:


File NameDescription
EMC_VSI_for_VMware_vSphere_Unified_Storage_Management.zip Used for storage management functions, such as creating a LUN that is presented to all hosts.
emc-vsi-pm-4.0.0-vmware-vsphere-WINDOWS-x86.zipUsed for Path Management of vSphere ESX hosts. This allows you to set the default path policy for all ESX hosts.
emc-vsi-spm-4.0.0-vmware-vsphere-WINDOWS-x86.zipUsed for Storage Pool management. This allows integration with the new CX4, VNX and Celerra storage pools.
emc-vsi-sv-4.0.0-vmware-vsphere-WINDOWS-x86.zipUsed for gaining visibility into the storage components behind a VM and/or ESX host. This allows you to easily see what storage resources are being used to support the VM.


There is an order of installation that should be followed to workaround a known issue with the MSI installer package.

Install in this order:


  1. NavisphereCLI

  2. emc-vsi-sv-4.0.0-vmware-vsphere-WINDOWS-x86.zip
  3. emc-vsi-spm-4.0.0-vmware-vsphere-WINDOWS-x86.zip
  4. emc-vsi-pm-4.0.0-vmware-vsphere-WINDOWS-x86.zip
  5. VSI Unified Storage Management Plug-in 4.0.0.45
What are the Multipathing Policies in ESX 4.x? Check out http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1011340 for more info.