Determine requirements for and configure NPIV

N-Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) is an ANSI T11 standard that describes how a single Fibre Channel HBA port can register with the fabric using several worldwide port names (WWPNs).  This allows a fabric-attached Nport to claim multiple fabric addresses. Each address appears as a unique entity on the Fibre Channel fabric.

The following requirements exist:

• NPIV can be used on virtual machines with RDM disks.
• The HBAs on your ESX/ESX host must support NPIV.
• Your fiber switches in the fabric must be NPIV-aware.
• When configuring a LUN for NPIV access at the storage level, make sure that the NPIV LUN number and NPIV target ID match the physical LUN and Target ID.
• Use the vSphere Client to manipulate virtual machines with WWNs.

When you use ESX/ESXi with NPIV, the following limitations apply:

• Because the NPIV technology is an extension to the FC protocol, it requires an FC switch and does not work on the direct attached FC disks.
• When you clone a virtual machine or template with a WWN assigned to it, the clones do not retain the WWN.
• NPIV does not support Storage vMotion.
• Disabling and then re-enabling the NPIV capability on an FC switch while virtual machines are running can cause an FC link to fail and I/O to stop.

You can assign a WWN to a new virtual machine with an RDM disk when you create this virtual machine.  You can create from 1 to 16 WWN pairs, which can be mapped to the first 1 to 16 physical HBAs on the host.

1. Open the New Virtual Machine wizard.
2. Select Custom, and click Next.
3. Follow all steps required to create a custom virtual machine.
4. On the Select a Disk page, select Raw Device Mapping, and click Next.
5. From a list of SAN disks or LUNs, select a raw LUN you want your virtual machine to access directly.
6. Select a datastore for the RDM mapping file.  You can place the RDM file on the same datastore where your virtual machine files reside, or select a different datastore.  NOTE If you want to use vMotion for a virtual machine with enabled NPIV, make sure that the RDM file is located on the same datastore where the virtual machine configuration file resides.
7. Follow the steps required to create a virtual machine with the RDM.
8. On the Ready to Complete page, select the Edit the virtual machine settings before completion check box and click Continue.  The Virtual Machine Properties dialog box opens.
9. Assign WWNs to the virtual machine.

   1. Click the Options tab, and select Fibre Channel NPIV.
   2. Select Generate new WWNs.
   3. Specify the number of WWNNs and WWPNs.

10. A minimum of 2 WWPNs are needed to support failover with NPIV. Typically only 1 WWNN is created for each virtual machine.
11. Click Finish.

The host creates WWN assignments for the virtual machine.