topic Re: Does Nimble recommend enabling flow control and BPDU protection, on iSCSI-connected interfaces with VMWare? in Array Setup and Networking

Does Nimble recommend enabling flow control and BPDU protection, on iSCSI-connected interfaces with VMWare?

quantum-it — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 16:08:01 GMT

I am running an ESXi 6.0U1 host, with its iSCSI storage interfaces connecting to SFP+ 10GbE ports on an HP ProCurve 5412zl switch running the latest firmware.

There is only a single 'core' enterprise switch in my environment, so all traffic for the entire network runs across it. The iSCSI storage vlan is configured separately from the default 'end user and server traffic' vlan.

Does Nimble recommend that the interfaces for the iSCSI uplinks from my ESXi servers be configured for both bpdu-protection and flow-control?

Re: Does Nimble recommend enabling flow control and BPDU protection, on iSCSI-connected interfaces with VMWare?

rugby0134 — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 16:46:42 GMT

Do not use Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) or use PortFast	Do not use STP on switch ports that connect to iSCSI initiators or the Nimble storage array network interfaces.
Configure flow control on each switch port	Configure Flow Control on each switch port that handles iSCSI connections. If your application server is using a software iSCSI initiator and NIC combination to handle iSCSI traffic, you must also enable Flow Control on the NICs to obtain the performance benefit.
Disable unicast storm control	Disable unicast storm control on each switch that handles iSCSI traffic. However, the use of broadcast and multicast storm control is encouraged.