Dell PowerVault ME5 Series Storage System Deployment Guide

Multipathing I/O

Depending on your system configuration, host operating systems may require that multipathing is supported.

• If fault tolerance is required, then multipathing software may be required. Host-based multipath software should be used in any configuration where two logical paths between the host and any storage volume may exist simultaneously. This includes most configurations where there are multiple connections to the host or multiple connections between a switch and the storage.
• ME5 Series storage systems comply with the SCSI-3 standard for Asymmetrical Logical Unit Access (ALUA). ALUA-compliant storage systems provide optimal and non-optimal path information to the host during device discovery. To implement ALUA, you must configure your host servers to use multipath I/O (MPIO).

Fibre channel switch zoning

If the hosts are connected to the storage system by FC switches, implement zoning to isolate traffic for each HBA. Use the FC switch management interface to create a zone for each server HBA. Each zone must contain only one HBA.

See the Fibre Channel zoning information in the System information worksheet for more information.

Host adapters

For a list of supported HBAs, see the ME5 Series Storage System Support Matrix on the Dell support site.

• Ensure that all HBAs have the latest supported firmware and drivers as described on Dell.com/support.
• For Fibre channel and SAS protocols, identify and record the WWNs of the HBAs that are used by the ME5 Series Storage System.
• For iSCSI protocols, identify and record the IP addresses of the HBAs that are used by the ME5 Series Storage System.