Which multipathing software is supported by XtremIO?

Noting the inefficiencies in VMware’s NMP driver, EMC developed a set of drivers specifically designed to overcome these limitations and improve the performance and reliability of the data passing between an array and a server. EMC developed the PowerPath family of products optimized specifically for Linux, Microsoft Windows, and UNIX Operating Systems as well as PowerPath/VE for VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisors.

PowerPath is installed on hosts to provide path failover, load balancing and performance optimization VPLEX engines (or directly to the XtremIO array if VPLEX is not used).

Note: VMware, with the cooperation of its storage partners, developed a Native Multipathing Plug-in (NMP). VMware NMP was designed to distribute the load over all the available paths and provide failover protection in the case of path, port or HBA failure, but it has not been fully optimized to work with the controllers in a storage systems. VMware’s NMP Round Robin policy does not have the intelligence that PowerPath has as PowerPath uses testing and diagnostics to continually monitor an environment to determine the optimal path for queuing requests and will adapt to current conditions.

References:https://www.emc.com/collateral/analyst-reports/emc-taneja-group-powerpath-tb.pdf