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Virtual Fibre Channel Support for HBA Card
Learn how to make virtual fibre channel work for your Host Bus Adaptor (HBA).
John Savill
November 10, 2013
1 Min Read
Q: I'm trying to create a virtual SAN to use with Hyper-V virtual fibre channel; however, my fibre channel host bus adaptors (HBAs) show as not being supported--what can I do?
A: The screen shot below is not what you want to see when trying to create a virtual SAN.
Virtual fibre channel is enabled through the use of NPIV, which enables virtual ports to be created on a host bus adaptor (HBA).
Thus the first item to check is whether the fibre channel HBA support NPIV. Once you have confirmed NPIV is supported, perform the following:
Ensure NPIV is enabled on each port. Some cards ship with it disabled by default (such as Emulex). Use whatever utility the card uses to enable NPIV, as the screen shot shows for Emulex. You will need to reboot.
Make sure you are running the latest driver from the vendor of the card.
If this doesn't fix the problem, look for a firmware update for your HBA and apply it (you will need to reboot, most likely).
After applying firmware, the card will reset to defaults for some settings. This means NPIV might need to be enabled again, and then you'd do another reboot.
In my experience, applying the latest firmware and driver, then ensuring NPIV is enabled should fix the problem. You should then see the following similar to this screen shot:
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