iSCSI target LUN on VM

loltim · 5 Apr 2013 at 20:54

hi all,

I'm planning on configuring a Synology RS812 NAS with 2 x WD 2TB Red's in RAID-1 as an additional data drive on an SBS 2011 machine.

currently I've got 2 x VM's. An SBS machine and an SQL machine and vmprotect 7 installed as a virtual appliance.

Am I right in thinking I need to connect the iSCSI LUN to the VM's config (edit settings in vsphere), rather than iSCSI initiator that's built into windows? If I use the windows iSCSI initiator the new data drive won't be included in the machine's snapshot will it? thus not being included in the backup?

Can someone confirm I'm right or whether I'm talking nonsense?

martynbez · 5 Apr 2013 at 21:32

I've always connected the iSCSi to the VM's config then attached the disk to the VM. This is the way vmware suggest to do it.

Backup wise you are always safe backup data drives away from the snap shots.

loltim · 5 Apr 2013 at 22:33

martynbez said:
I've always connected the iSCSi to the VM's config then attached the disk to the VM. This is the way vmware suggest to do it.

Backup wise you are always safe backup data drives away from the snap shots.

You mean use a different application to vmprotect 7? Presumably it wouldn't even know the new iSCSI data drive exists so I'd have no other option?

ASE001 · 6 Apr 2013 at 09:59

iSCSI connection via the Windows OS is useful for testing Windows clustering, where drives need to move between OS's automatically (clustering). This also gives the flexibility to have the OS's on different VM hosts, that's if you don't have the luxury of having a full vCenter configuration.

It also gives you the chance to play with MPIO (Multipath I/O), you can setup multiple network paths to the iSCSI LUN.

Basically it depends on what you want to do?

oddjob62 · 6 Apr 2013 at 14:59

I don't know what vmprotect is, and i'm more a hyper-v man, but snapshots won't work if you're using the guest iscsi initator.
http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/i...UID-53F65726-A23B-4CF0-A7D5-48E584B88613.html

loltim · 6 Apr 2013 at 15:18

oddjob62 said:
I don't know what vmprotect is, and i'm more a hyper-v man, but snapshots won't work if you're using the guest iscsi initator.
http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/i...UID-53F65726-A23B-4CF0-A7D5-48E584B88613.html

It's just a VM backup solution from Acronis which works with ESXI 5.
I believe VM protect 8 is out now for server 2012 etc but we're now going to be looking at Veeam.

DRZ · 7 Apr 2013 at 18:31

You're correct - you will need to add the iSCSI LUN to the vSphere configuration for you to take advantage of the vStorage APIs which drive your backups.

Not only that but you're taking a bit of a risk when snapshots/vMotions happen with the stun/unstun operations causing the iSCSI traffic to potentially drop frames...

gavind · 9 Aug 2013 at 15:50

As much as possible, I would stay away from iSCSI initiator. It's just too much of a headache.