Fibre Channel Storage with VMware Cloud Foundation
Fibre Channel (FC) is a storage protocol that the SAN uses to transfer data traffic from ESXi hosts to shared storage. The protocol packages SCSI commands into FC frames. To connect to the FC SAN, the ESXi host uses Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBAs).
Fibre Channel can only be used as supplemental storage for the management domain and consolidated workload domains, however it can be used as principal storage for VI workload domain.
Storage Type | Consolidated Workload Domain | Management Domain | VI Workload Domain |
|---|---|---|---|
Principal | No | No | Yes |
Supplemental | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Prerequisites for FC Storage
- A minimum of three ESXi hosts. Review the ESXi Fibre Channel SAN Requirements in the vSphere Storage Guide.
- Perform a VxRail first run specifying the VMFS on FC configuration settings. For information on the VxRail first run, contact Dell EMC Support.
- A pre-created VMFS datastore.
Procedures for FC Storage
- To use Fibre Channel as principal storage for a new VI workload domain, perform the VxRail first run and then create the VI workload domain. See Creating VxRail VI Workload Domains.
- To use Fibre Channel as principal storage for a new cluster, perform the VxRail first run and then add the VxRail cluster. See Add a VxRail Cluster to a Workload Domain Using the SDDC Manager UI
- To use Fibre Channel as supplemental storage, see the vSphere Storage Guide.