Configuring Fusion-io Devices on ESX 4.

x
8.27.2010

Copyright Notice
The information contained in this document is subject to change without notice.
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applicable) of their respective owners. Unless otherwise stated herein, no association with any other
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CONTENTS
Introduction .......................................................................................................................................................... 1
Presenting a Fusion-io Device to a VM ................................................................................................................... 2
INSTALLING THE FIRMWARE AND UTILITIES................................................................................................. 2
UPDATING THE IODRIVE FIRMWARE............................................................................................................ 2
INSTALL THE IODRIVE DRIVER ............................................................................................................... 3
LOW-LEVEL-FORMATTING THE IODRIVE ...................................................................................................... 3
Using Virtual Hard Drive Devices on the VM Layer ................................................................................................. 5
CREATING THE DATASTORE ........................................................................................................................ 5
PRESENTING THE VIRTUAL HARD DISK DRIVE TO THE VIRTUAL MACHINE .................................................. 5

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All other product and company names and marks mentioned in this document are property of their respective owners

Introduction

_____________________________________________________________________________

This Configuration Guide provides instructions for the following:

Configuring the ioDrive and ioDrive Duo with ESX 4.x and ESXi 4.x
Creating, presenting, and accessing virtual hard drive (HDD) devices on the virtual machine layer

This solution is not directly supported by VMware. If you have questions or issues concerning this
configuration, contact contact Fusion-io (support@fusionio.com). VMware will offer best-effort
support to fix vSphere-related problems that may be found in the field. Partners must verify proper
functioning of the configuration with any future vSphere major and minor release, as VMware
doesnt guarantee that compatibility with future releases will be maintained.
Fusion-io offers two unique solid state storage devices:

The ioDrive, a revolutionary new solid-state technology that dramatically increases bandwidth
and application performance, reduces latency, and simplifies your IT infrastructure, all while
slashing capital and operating costs.
The ioDrive Duo, which doubles the performance and capacity available on a single device.

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Presenting a Fusion-io Device to a VM

_____________________________________________________________________________

At present, the Fusion ioDrive and ioDrive Duo devices map directly to a virtual machine virtual hard
disk drive for use by the virtual machine only. ioDrive devices are not available via the Service
Console on ESX 4.x.
Before you begin, make sure ESX 4.x is already installed on your system.

To present an ioDrive or ioDrive Duo to a virtual machine, you need to do the following tasks:

Install the Fusion-io firmware and utilities RPMs in ESX4.x Service Console.
Update the ioDrive firmware.
Install the ioDrive driver.
Low-level-format the ioDrive device.

You can install ESXi 4.x after the firmware is updated and the devices are low-level formatted. For
details, see Using Virtual Hard Drive Devices on the VM Layer.

INSTALLING THE FIRMWARE AND UTILITIES

To install the Fusion-io firmware and utilities,
1. Go to the ESX4.x Service Console.
2. Run the following commands as administrator (Note: file names may be slightly different)::
rpm -i fio-util-2.0.0.117-1.0.x86_64.rpm
rpm -i fio-firmware-41936-1.0.noarch.rpm

UPDATING THE IODRIVE FIRMWARE

If you need to update your existing ioDrive firmware to the current version,
1. Make sure you are still logged into the Service Console as administrator

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2.

Run the following command:

fio-update-iodrive /usr/share/fio/firmware/iodrive_<version>.fff

where <version> (such as 41936) is the latest firmware file number.

To locate and download the latest firmware version, visit http://support.fusionio.com

INSTALL THE IODRIVE DRIVER

To install the ioDrive driver, complete the following steps from the ESX4.x Service Console, logged in as
administrator:
1. Place the driver CD in the CD-ROM drive of the ESX host.
2. Insert the driver CD.
3. Navigate to <cd mount point>/offline-bundle/ and locate the offline-bundle.zip file.
4.

Run the esxupdate command to install drivers using the offline bundle:
esxupdate bundle=offline-bundle.zip --nosigcheck --nodeps nocache \
--maintenancemode update

Next, you need to disable the ioDrive driver on the next boot; and then restart the ESX4.x host.
5.

Still logged in as administrator from ESX4.x Service Console, perform the following commands:

6.

esxcfg-module -d iomemory-vsl
esxcfg-boot b
reboot

LOW-LEVEL-FORMATTING THE IODRIVE

To perform a low-level format of the ioDrive, prior to adding the filesystem for the device, follow the steps
below.
7. When the restart completes, log back into ESX4.x Service Console.
8. Run the following commands as administrator:
9.

vmkload_mod iomemory-vsl auto_attach=0

fio-format b 512 /dev/fct0

The fio-format command formats the ioDrive with a blocksize of 512 bytes.
10. If you have an ioDrive Duo, or if multiple ioDrives are populate, repeat the fio-format
command for each /dev/fctx node. For example:

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11. fio-format b 512 /dev/fct2

12. fio-format b 512 /dev/fct3
13.

14. etc.
15. Finally, you need to re-enable the ioDrive driver.
16. Still logged in as administrator from ESX4.x Service Console, perform the following commands:
17. esxcfg-module -e iomemory-vsl
esxcfg-boot b
reboot

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2010 Fusion-io, Inc. All rights reserved. ioDrive is a registered trademark of Fusion-io in the United States and/or other countries.
All other product and company names and marks mentioned in this document are property of their respective owners

Using Virtual Hard Drive Devices on the VM Layer

_____________________________________________________________________________

This section explains how to create and present virtual hard drive devices (HDDs) on a virtual machine layer.
At this point, it is possible to install ESXi 4.x, but the driver will need to be installed again after
installing ESXi 4.x using the vihostupdate utility. Please see the User Guide for more information.

CREATING THE DATASTORE

To,add the datastore(s) to vSphere using the vSphere Client GUI, follow the steps below.
18. Log in to vSphere client as an administrative user.
19. In Hosts and Clusters, select the ESX host.
20. Click the Configuration tab.
21. Click Storage in the Hardware section.
22. Click Add Storage, and follow the wizard to add ioDrive as a datastore.
23. Repeat the previous (Add Storage) step for each ioDrive installed.

PRESENTING THE VIRTUAL HARD DISK DRIVE TO THE VIRTUAL MACHINE

24. Log in to vSphere client as an administrative user.
25. In Hosts and Clusters, select the ESX host.
26. Select the virtual machine to add ioDrive storage to (alternatively, create a new virtual machine
stored on the datastore created previously).
27. Click Edit virtual machine settings.
28. Click Add, and then select the virtual HDD.
29. Select the datastore specified when adding the virtual HDD.

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2010 Fusion-io, Inc. All rights reserved. ioDrive is a registered trademark of Fusion-io in the United States and/or other countries.
All other product and company names and marks mentioned in this document are property of their respective owners