topic Re: UCS iSCSI boot dual subnets in Array Setup and Networking

UCS iSCSI Boot Dual Subnets

kassim122 — Wed, 11 Jun 2014 08:42:40 GMT

Hi All,

we have setup a UCS with Nimble CS220G & connecting via the appliance ports. We have set it up as per the guides on this forum & so far we are able to iSCSI boot ESXi from a Nimble volume. Few things we are not clear on are:

1) when a blade boots into ESXi & just after the console logon screen appear, we see two connection initiators from UCS (one from each fabric) in the Nimble GUI, but then a few seconds later the connection initiator from fabric b disappears in the Nimble GUI & it does not re-appear until we go through a reboot again. should that be happening? i would expect to see both initiators from UCS fabric A & B. is that correct?

2) Within ESXi, we see the iSciBootvSwitch is created with one vNic & the IP info for the initiator from fabric A.

3) possibly a stupid question, but under storage adapters > isci adaptors, should we be seeing both initiators from UCS? currently we only see the one from fabric A.

4) Do we need to install anything on the ESXi side?

Any help on this would be appreciated.

We are running the following:

Nimble OS 2.0.8 with Virtual IP's

UCSM 2.2

Dual subnets

Thanks

Kassim

Re: UCS iSCSI boot dual subnets

kassim122 — Fri, 20 Jun 2014 08:22:26 GMT

now resolved.

Re: UCS iSCSI boot dual subnets

briffle52 — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 16:44:16 GMT

I have a similar problem, could you describe how you resolved it for those of us that find your posting later?

Re: UCS iSCSI boot dual subnets

kassim122 — Tue, 24 Jun 2014 11:30:44 GMT

Hi Brian,

not sure if i should have put down resolved but we have it working as follows:

1) we only still see one initiator in Nimble pointing the initiator name from fabric A.

2) in the iSciBootvSwitch, we added another port group & added the vNic & IP info for initiator from fabric B

3) we are still seeing only the one initiator from fabric A, but we are "guessing" that could just be a pointer label, as we tested this theory by removing access for that initiator in Nimble & it did not drop the connection. we still have further tests to carry out.

i logged a case with VMware about this & they sent me the following kb link

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2038869

as initially we created a new vswitch to add the vNic for the initiator from fabric B & when we try to bind it to the iSCSI adapter, it showed as not in use. linked to point 2 above.

4) we installed the Nimble PSP package on each ESXi host.

dont know if this helps, but i can try & help if you have any further questions.