Updating some path types the other day in VMware for a ALUA compliant storage array, came across

http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2011/03/21/changing-the-psp-from-fixed-to-rr/

Duncan wrote the post very well so as I was running some of the commands I noticed that one of them appeared to be EMC CX specific, so I was wondering what is the proper setting for my EVA that I was running the commands against and for that matter what is the proper setting for other arrays.  Here is the command that sets the default Path Selection Policy (PSP) for the array type / luns that you will be adding in the future. You will want to run this command to have all of the hard work you just completed be carried through when you add additional luns, anyway here is the command that Duncan ran: 

esxcli nmp satp setdefaultpsp –satp VMW_SATP_ALUA_CX –psp VMW_PSP_RR

This command works great if you are running an ALUA compliant EMC Clariion CX storage array.

but if you are running a different storage array other than an EMC Clariion CX what do you substitute, “VMW_SATP_ALUA_CX”, with?

Well to se a full list of predefined plugins you can run:

esxcli nmp satp listrules

that will give you a list and in my case I should use “VMW_SATP_ALUA” and for that matter it looks like this is the setting you use for all ALUA compliant systems other than the Clariion CX.. So that brings up the question what is special about Clariion ALUA? Maybe a different post….