Use the SAN Configuration option to manage your storage area network and attached storage devices for your ESX Server system and its virtual machines.
The SAN Configuration window identifies each SAN connected to the machine by the World Wide Port Name (WWPN). This lets you map between the vmhba name and the WWPN, to help you determine which vmhba is connected to which port of the switch. The WWPN also helps if you want to mask or hide LUNs on the disk array on a per-HBA basis.
Because the disks on the SANs can potentially be accessed by multiple ESX Server computers, there are some configuration issues that are unique to SANs.
For more information about SANs, see www.vmware.com/support/esx2/doc/ esx20admin_san_disks.html.
Note: Be sure that only one ESX Server system has access to the SAN while you are using the VMware Management Interface to configure it by formatting the VMFS-2 volumes. After you have finished the configuration, be sure that all partitions on the shared disk are set for public or shared access for access by multiple ESX Servers (see www.vmware.com/support/esx2/doc/esx20admin_fsmgmt_vmfsaccess_disks.html).
ESX Server scans LUNs whenever a Fibre Channel driver is loaded. You can manually initiate a scan through the VMware Management Interface or by using the vmkfstools -s command.
You should rescan LUNs whenever you create new LUNS on a disk array. You may also want to rescan LUNs when you change the LUN masking on a disk array.
To scan for LUNs, click Refresh Targets. Any changes to any LUNs are reflected the next time you open the Storage Configuration page. For more information about storage configuration, see Configuring Server Storage: Disk Partitions and File Systems. If any new LUNs are VMFS-formatted, changes are reflected in the management interface file manager in the /vmfs directory.
Note: If you are using multipathing with multiple HBAs, then you should refresh targets for all of the HBAs. If, after your rescan, you see new LUNs with VMFS volumes, then you will see the appropriate subdirectories when you view the contents of the / vmfs directory and in the Storage Configuration page of the management interface.
You can specify persistent bindings for your Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBAs). With persistent binding, ESX Server assigns specific target IDs to specific SCSI devices. This target ID association is retained from reboot to reboot unless changed by you.
Persistent binding is particularly useful if you are using raw disks with ESX Server. A raw disk is directly mapped to a physical disk drive on your storage area network (SAN). ESX Server directly accesses the data on this disk as a raw device (and not as a file on a VMFS volume).
To retain the bindings of target IDs for the devices on the SAN, click Save Bindings.
For more options regarding persistent bindings, see www.vmware.com/support/esx2/ doc/esx20admin_pbind_disks.html.