Hosts

An HPE Primera and 3PAR Storage system treats a host as a set of initiator port WWNs or iSCSI names. Hosts that are physically connected to ports on a storage system are detected automatically.

New WWNs or iSCSI names can be assigned to host paths before hosts are physically connected. These names do not need to be associated with target ports on the system controller nodes. This provides plug-and-play functionality that avoids manual reconfiguration after new hosts are connected.

FCoE connectivity is supported on HPE 3PAR 10000 Storage systems and HPE 3PAR 7000 Storage systems through the use of CNA adapters. CNA ports can be configured to be used as FCoE or iSCSI ports.

Active and inactive hosts

An active host is connected to a storage system port and is recognized by the HPE Storage Operating System as having a port connection. An active host might have a number of volumes exported to it.

An inactive host is recognized by the HPE Storage OS, but does not appear to have a port connection. This can occur when a host is offline or is disconnected from a system port, or if there is an error condition.

Host Persona

A host persona is a set of behaviors that allows hosts that are connected to FC or iSCSI ports to deviate from the default host behavior. By assigning a persona to a host, multiple host types that require different responses can share the same storage system port. For example, hosts running Windows, Linux, and AIX operating systems can connect to the same storage system port.

NOTE:
The HPE Storage OS supports Windows Server 2019 as a host. The corresponding host OS or persona is available with OS 3.2.2 MU6 P160 and OS 3.3.1 MU5. For arrays with other versions, when you are creating a host on HPE 3PAR for a server which is running Windows Server 2019, ensure that you use the following:

  • Windows Server 2016.

  • [For HPE Primera] Windows Server persona 15.

In host persona type 2, the remote target port group (RTPG) feature automatically enables active/active multipathing for supported Windows host operating systems.

Learn more: Creating, editing, and deleting hosts.