UCS Config - Is Enabling NPV Disruptive?

[awhitlatch]

Hello there,

I am working to set up UCS in our environment for the first time. We have two 6120s and a single blade Chassis. We're connecting to storage from the 6120s via two MDS 9124 fabric switches (v.4.2(3), I think). As I understand it, I need to enable NPV on each of 9124s before I can get the UCS to communicate via the fabric. Is that correct? And if yes, will simply enabling NPV cause a disruption in service to other devices on the MDS switch? We currently have other production systems utilizing the same switches. Right now NPIV is already enabled. 

Once I get NPV enabled, is there anything else I need to configure on the ports for UCS to work?

Thanks in advance!

-Adam    

[simon.geary · Accepted solution]

You don't need to enable NPV on the MDS, it's the Fabric Interconnect that operates in NPV mode, not the MDS.

NPIV is required on the MDS so as you already have this enabled you should be good to go. You'll still need to configure the MDS ports into the correct VSAN and do your zoning based on the WWPN pools you create in the service profile. On the UCS side, make sure the FC uplink ports are configured in the same VSAN.

This doc explains the requirements in more detail.

https://supportforums.cisco.com/docs/DOC-6186

[awhitlatch]

Hi Simon,

Thanks for getting back to me! Yep, you're right, I found out about 2 hrs after I posted to this forum. Think it's the same doc you posted.

The only other question I had is about the Zones and Zone Sets on the MDS within each vSAN. I have vSANs set up for each fabric. A side and B side. We're planning to run VMware ESXi on a couple blades. I have been told that we need to have a separate Zone Set for each blade or else the boot from SAN sometimes gets confiused and won't boot properly. That seems kind of fishy to me. However, when I try to activate more than one ZS for a given vSAN the other ZS deactivates. Do I really need to separate blades into different zone sets or do I just need to use different zones for each blade?

Thanks again for your help!

-Adam

[David McFarland · Accepted solution]

Adam,

Best Practice is to create individual zone members. Each zone member would have the host HBA wwpn and the storage target wwpn. Then you place all of the zone members into a zoneset and activate. You can only have one active zoneset per VSAN. I've attached  an example. Each zone is a unique wwpn for the blade HBA and its assciated target wwpn.

mds-switch# show zoneset vsan 100
zoneset name ZS_prod_vsan100 vsan 100
  zone name Z_group01 vsan 100
    pwwn 20:00:00:25:b5:ff:01:00
    pwwn 50:0a:09:86:86:78:3b:98

  zone name Z_group02 vsan 100
    pwwn 20:00:00:25:b5:ff:02:00
    pwwn 50:0a:09:86:86:78:3b:98

  zone name Z_group03 vsan 100
    pwwn 20:00:00:25:b5:ff:03:00
    pwwn 50:0a:09:86:86:78:3b:98

  zone name Z_group04 vsan 100
    pwwn 20:00:00:25:b5:ff:04:00
    pwwn 50:0a:09:86:86:78:3b:98

[awhitlatch]

OK. that's what I thought. Thanks for the reality check. Don't really know why the other guy was telling me to create separate zone sets for each blade. It didn't seem right. 

Thanks a bunch for your help!

-Adam