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With the vSphere Pluggable Storage Architecture (PSA), the storage protocol determines which Multipathing Plugin (MPP) is assigned to volumes mapped from the PowerStore array. With SCSI-based protocols such as Fibre Channel and iSCSI, the Native Multipathing Plug-in (NMP) is used, whereas with NVMe-oF, the VMware High Performance Plug-in (HPP) is used.
SCSI-based volumes using Fibre Channel and iSCSI are automatically assigned the Native Multipathing Plug-in (NMP). However, the ESXi Storage Array Type Plug-in (SATP) module and its corresponding path selection policy (PSP) may require you to configure claim rules to use Round Robin (RR) with PowerStore appliances. Applying the settings in the Dell Technologies Host Connectivity Guide ensures that all volumes presented to the host use Round Robin as the default pathing policy.
Also, the recommended esxcli command sets the IOPS path-change condition to one I/O per path. While the default setting in the RR PSP sends 1,000 IOPS down each path before switching to the next path, this recommended setting instructs ESXi to send one command down each path. This setting results in better utilization of each path’s bandwidth, which is useful for applications that send large I/O block sizes to the array.
According to the Dell Technologies Host Connectivity Guide, SSH to each ESXi host using root credentials to issue the following command (reboot required):
esxcli storage nmp satp rule add -c tpgs_on -e "PowerStore" -M PowerStore -P VMW_PSP_RR -O iops=1 -s VMW_SATP_ALUA -t vendor -V DellEMC
The claim rule can also be added to discovered ESXi hosts using VMware PowerCLI:
Note: The following commands are for vSphere 7 and 8 ESXi hosts. ESXi 6.7 hosts should also include the disable_action_OnRetryErrors option. See the Dell Technologies Host Connectivity Guide for more information.
# Add or remove a claim rule on each vSphere host
$esxlist | ForEach-Object {
$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -VMHost $_ -V2
# Fill the hash table (optional params are not required)
$sRule = @{
satp = 'VMW_SATP_ALUA' #esxcli: -s
psp = 'VMW_PSP_RR' #esxcli: -P
pspoption = 'iops=1' #esxcli: -O
claimoption = 'tpgs_on' #esxcli: -c
#option = 'disable_action_OnRetryErrors' #esxcli: -o
vendor = 'DellEMC' #esxcli: -V
model = 'PowerStore' #esxcli: -M
description = 'PowerStore' #esxcli: -e
}
# Call the esxcli command to add/remove the rule
Write-Host $selection "rule on" $_
$esxcli.storage.nmp.satp.rule.$selection.Invoke($sRule)
For NVMe-oF targets, the High Performance Plug-in (HPP) replaces the NMP. The HPP will claim NVMe devices and is designed to improve storage performance for modern high-speed interfaces.
The HPP has multiple Path Selection Schemes (PSS) available to determine which physical paths are used for I/O requests. Load Balance – Latency Round Robin (LB-RR) is the preferred Path Selection Scheme as recommended by the Dell Technologies Host Connectivity Guide.
According to the Dell Technologies Host Connectivity Guide, SSH to each ESXi host using root credentials to issue the following command (reboot required):
esxcli storage core claimrule add -u -t vendor --nvme-controller-model "dellemc-powerstore" -P HPP -g "pss=LB-RR"
For more information about the Latency Round Robin Path Selection policy, see the following resource on the VMware website:
For more information about NVMe-oF and the High Performance Plug-in, see the following resources on the VMware website: