Fibre Channel NPIV Settings

N-port ID virtualization (NPIV) supports sharing a single physical FC HBA port among multiple virtual ports, each with unique identifiers. This capability lets you control virtual machine access to LUNs on a per-virtual machine basis.

Each virtual port is identified by a pair of world wide names (WWNs): a world wide port name (WWPN) and a world wide node name (WWNN). These WWNs are assigned by vCenter Server. For detailed information on how to configure NPIV for a virtual machine, see the Fibre Channel SAN Configuration Guide.

NPIV support is subject to the following limitations:

• NPIV must be enabled on the SAN switch. Contact switch vendors for information about enabling NPIV on their devices.
• NPIV is supported only for virtual machines with RDM disks. Virtual machines with regular virtual disks continue to use the WWNs of the host’s physical HBAs.
• Virtual machines on a host have access to a LUN using their NPIV WWNs if the physical HBAs on the ESXi host have access to a LUN using its WWNs. Ensure that access is provided to both the host and the virtual machines

You can set up NPIV with the VirtualMachineConfigSpec properties that start with npiv.