Virtual hardware - Storage arrays

[nickpark]

Is it or will it be possible to virtualise SAN hardware, such as the HP MSA 1000 or EVA 3000 ?

This would be quite excellent to provide a cheap lab.

 

[Chacalinc]

what would you like to do?

Chacal, Inc.

 

[nickpark]

1. Create a virtual machine. Install windows 2003 server. Install HBA drivers for SAN.
2. Create a virtual SAN - e.g. an MSA1000. Configure the device with a redundant controller, log-in to the fabric and assign an IP address. Turn on the array.
3. Access the SAN via the virtual machine. Configure the drive arrays.
* Now my Virtual environment is a copy of my prod environment.

4. Make changes with confidence without having to purchase a test array, hba cards, etc.

 

[Chacalinc]

nope... that's not the way.

Actually, the disk array must be presented to the VMWare ESX (I guess that is your VMWare server), but instead of creating VMFS-2 filesystem, you *assign* the LUNs (of the MSA1000) as *raw* disks.

RTFM:

http://www.vmware.com/support/esx25/doc/admin/esx25admin_rawscsidisks.html#1024523

Cheers.

Chacal, Inc.

 

[nickpark]

I havent used vmware except to run linux on a windows pc - and that was several years ago.
I don't just want the drives virtualised - i want the SAN device virtualised - including interconnects, the device O/S (ie fabricOS) as well as the storage.

 

[comtec17]

You cannot virtual the SAN or Storage in that way. Sounds like you need to look at SANSymphony.