XenCenter

Storage Multipathing

Note:

XenCenter YYYY.x.x is currently in preview and is not supported for production use. Note that any future references to production support apply only when XenCenter YYYY.x.x and XenServer 8 go from preview status to general availability.

You can use XenCenter YYYY.x.x to manage your XenServer 8 and Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 CU1 non-production environments. However, to manage your Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 CU1 production environment, use XenCenter 8.2.7. For more information, see the XenCenter 8.2.7 documentation.

You can install XenCenter 8.2.7 and XenCenter YYYY.x.x on the same system. Installing XenCenter YYYY.x.x does not overwrite your XenCenter 8.2.7 installation.

Dynamic multipathing support is available for Fibre Channel and iSCSI storage repositories. By default, multipathing uses round robin mode load balancing, so both routes have active traffic on them during normal operation. You enable and disable storage multipathing in XenCenter via the Multipathing tab on the server’s Properties dialog.

Before you enable multipathing:

  • Verify that multiple targets are available on your storage server.
  • The server must be placed in maintenance mode. This action ensures that any running virtual machines with virtual disks in the affected storage repository are migrated before the changes are made.
  • Multipathing must be configured on each host in the pool. All cabling and, in the case of iSCSI, subnet configurations must match for the corresponding NICs on each host. (For example, all NICs must be configured to use the same subnet. For more information, see Configuring IP Addresses.)

For more in-depth multipathing information, see Multipathing.

You can use up to 16 paths to a single LUN.

To enable multipathing

  1. In the Resources pane, select the server and then put it into maintenance mode. There is a short delay while XenCenter migrates any active virtual machines and unplugs the existing storage. If the server is a pool coordinator, it is disconnected and might disappear from the Resources pane temporarily while a new pool coordinator is assigned. When the server reappears in the Resources pane with the server maintenance mode icon, continue to the next step.

    Server maintenance mode icon - a Server icon with a blue square on top

  2. On the General tab, select Properties and then select the Multipathing tab.
  3. To enable multipathing, check the Enable multipathing on this server check box. To disable multipathing, clear the check box.
  4. Click OK to apply the new setting and close the dialog box. There is a short delay while XenCenter saves the new storage configuration.
  5. Take the server back out of maintenance mode. Select the server in the Resources pane, right-click, and select Exit Maintenance Mode.
Storage Multipathing