Best Practise Network Configuration Nimble iSCSI Cisco 4900

[Traq]

Hi,

i'm a Newbie in Nimble and have read many Documentation/Posts and now i want your opinion to best practise.

I have a Nimble HF20 with iSCSI, 2x Cisco WS-C4900M only for 10G iSCSI Network and 4x DL380 Gen10 vmware Hosts with 10G Uplink to each Switch. What is according to experience better, single subnet or multiple subnets?

Has anyone best practise / ISL (802.1Q) Switch config, MPIO or recommendations?

thanks!

Traq

[Nick_Dyer]

Hello

This Nimble Networking Deployment Considerations is your ultimate reference for networking/setup questions, including best practices for switch configs. 

https://infosight.hpe.com/InfoSight/media/cms/active/public/HPE_Nimble_Storage_Deployment_Considerations_for_Networking.pdf

Take a look at page 12 - you'll see that the ultimate recommendation is multiple switches (which is what you have) but also multiple iSCSI subnets, as it creates a separate fault domain per switch. However, it does make it slightly more complex to manage vs a single subnet.

You will want to use MPIO in your servers, and Nimbel has a 'Connection Manager' to install in your servers/hosts to automate and simplify your MPIO and tuning of the stack.

[Traq]

Thanks Nick for your answer,

I have read the document and that confirms my decision. That means 3 vlans, 1st vlan for management, 2nd vlan for Data1 and 3rd vlan for Data2.

Can someone give me iSCSI Switch Configuration Tips? I know flow control on, disable unicast storm control, jumbo frame on ... What about ISL Configuration?