ESXi iSCSI SAN Configuration

aix0

aix0

aix0

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Hi Chaps

I have a server with multiple NICs, 2 of which are dedicated to iSCSI traffic. I also have a SAN with 2 NICs, all interfaces on both on the SAN, server and switches have jumbo frames enabled. The iSCSI traffic is separated on its own VLAN and it works as expected.

However, on my ESXi box, how would I connect my virtual machines to my SAN? I currently have 1 vSwitch configured, which is the production network and each VM has one assigned NIC. -

  • Should I allocate 2 NICs to each VM, one for the production network and one for the SAN?
  • Do I mount the SAN volume within ESXi and add a secondary disk to the VM?
  • Or none of the above?

Any suggestions would be massively appreciated! Hope it makes sense!

Thanks

Martin
 
Here is mine - ESX Cluster (3 Nodes connected to SAN)
2rrgpkwgh39nps4f2rt.jpg


Each node has this same configuration.

Notice I have a VM Port Group on VSwitch1 - this is not best practice,but I wanted to use iSCSI inititators in my VM's for a failover cluster. If you don't want to use iSCSI initiators, you can leave this out.

In addition you won't need vMotion switch and probably not a serviceconsole switch either.

It is definitely best to separate your iSCSI traffic - dedicate some NICs on your server for this.
 
As above, 2 nics for VM LAN and 2 nics for ip storage (iSCSI) with no gateway configured, just make sure you set your MTU to 9k or whatever value you have specified for jf
 
ThorpedoUK said:
As above, 2 nics for VM LAN and 2 nics for ip storage (iSCSI) with no gateway configured, just make sure you set your MTU to 9k or whatever value you have specified for jf
Click to expand...

One little gotcha there, the host needs a gateway set which is pingable if you're going to enable HA. It throws a random error otherwise, that ones caught me twice now :)

Might not be relevant but worth mentioning just in case
 
I agree mate for the VM LAN but for the ISCSI network // vswitch you can configure it via the command line and dont need any formal routing (the way it should be with iscsi)
 
Definately mate :)

You can't go wrong with the VMware client though, definately the best out there

Ive moved into a different role now, less infrastructure so don't get to play around with it much anymore :(
 
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